THE  THEORY  OF 
THE    THEATRE 


CLAYTON    HAMILTON 


^i 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Kate  Gordon  Moore 


THE     THEORY    OF 
THE     THEATRE 


AND  OTHER  PRINCIPLES  OF 
DRAMATIC  CRITICISM 


BY 

CLAYTON  HAMILTON 

AUTHOR    OF    "MATEHIAL3   AND   METHODS   OF   FICTION 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1913 


Copyright,  1910 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
Published  April,  1910 


/63I 


TO 
BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

MENTOR  AND  FRIEND 

WHO  FIRST  AWAKENED  MY  CRITICAL  INTEREST 

IN  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 


81G1 ; 1 


PREFACE 

Most  of  the  chapters  which  make  up  the  pres- 
ent volume  have  already  appeared,  in  earlier 
versions,  in  certain  magazines ;  and  to  the  editors  of 
The  Forum,  The  North  American  Review,  The 
Smart  Set,  and  The  Bookman,  I  am  indebted  for 
permission  to  republish  such  materials  as  I  have 
culled  from  my  contributions  to  their  pages. 
Though  these  papers  were  written  at  different  times 
and  for  different  immediate  circles  of  subscribers, 
they  were  all  designed  from  the  outset  to  illustrate 
certain  steady  central  principles  of  dramatic  criti- 
cism ;  and,  thus  collected,  they  afford,  I  think,  a 
consistent  exposition  of  the  most  important  points 
in  the  theory  of  the  theatre.  The  introductory 
chapter,  entitled  What  is  a  Play?,  has  not,  in  any 
form,  appeared  in  print  before;  and  all  the  other 
papers  have  been  diligently  revised,  and  in  many 
passages  entirely  rewritten. 

C.  H. 
New  Yoek  City:  1910. 


CONTENTS 


THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  What  is  a  Plat? 3 

II.  The  Psychology  of  Theatre  Attdiences     .      .     30 

III.  The  Actoe  akd  the  Dramatist 59 

IV.  Stage  Conventions  in  Modern  Times    ...     73 
V.  Economy   of    Attention   in    Theatrical    Per- 
formances        95 

VI.  Emphasis   in   the   Drama 112 

VII.  The  Four  Leading  Types  of  Drama  ....   127 

VIII.  The  Modern  Social  Drama 133 

OTHER  PRINCIPLES  OF  DRAMATIC 
CRITICISM 

I.     The  Public  and  the  Dramatist 153 

IL  Dramatic  Art  and  the  Theatre   Business     .   161 

in.  The  Happy  Ending  in  the  Theatre     .      .      .   169 

IV.     The  Boundaries  of  Approbation 175 

V.  Imitation  and  Suggestion  in  the  Drama   .      .   179 

VI.  Holding  the  Mirror  up  to  Nature   ....   184 

VII.  Blank  Vf.rse  on  the  Contemporary  Stage     .    193 

VIII.  Dramatic  Literature  AND  Theatric  Journalism  199 

IX.     The  Intention  of  Permanence 207 

X.     The  Quality  of  New  Endeavor 212 

XL  The  Effect  of  Plays  Upon  the  Public    .      .   217 

Xn.  Pleasant  and   Unpleasant  Plays      ....   222 

Xin.     Themes  in  the  Theatre 228 

XIV.     The  Function  of  Imagination 233 

Index 241 


THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 


THE 
THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY? 

A  PLAY  is  a  story  devised  to  be  presented  by 
actors  on  a  stage  before  an  audience. 

This  plain  statement  of  fact  affords  an  exceed- 
ingly simple  definition  of  the  drama, —  a  definition 
so  simple  indeed  as  to  seem  at  the  first  glance  easily 
obvious  and  therefore  scarcely  Avorthy  of  expres- 
sion. But  if  we  examine  the  statement  thoroughly, 
phrase  by  phrase,  we  shall  see  that  it  sums  up 
within  itself  the  entire  theory  of  the  theatre,  and 
that  from  this  primary  axiom  we  may  deduce  the 
whole  practical  philosophy  of  dramatic  criticism. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  linger  long  over  an  explana- 
tion of  the  word  "  story."  A  story  is  a  repre- 
sentation of  a  series  of  events  linked  together  by 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect  and  marching  forward 
toward  a  predestined  culmination, —  each  event  ex- 
hibiting imagined  characters  performing  imagined 
acts    in   an    appropriate    imagined    setting.     This 

S 


4    THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

definition  applies,  of  course,  to  the  epic,  the  bal- 
lad, the  novel,  the  short-story,  and  all  other  forms 
of  narrative  art,  as  well  as  to  the  drama. 
s/  But  the  phrase  "  devised  to  be  presented  "  dis- 
tinguishes the  drama  sharply  from  all  other  forms 
of  narrative.  In  particular  it  must  be  noted  that 
a  play  is  not  a  story  that  is  written  to  be  read. 
By  no  means  must  the  drama  be  considered  pri- 
marily as  a  department  of  literature, —  like  the 
epic  or  the  novel,  for  example.  Rather,  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  theatre,  should  literature  be  con- 
sidered as  only  one  of  a  multitude  of  means  which 
the  dramatist  must  employ  to  convey  his  story  ef- 
fectively to  the  audience.  The  great  Greek 
dramatists  needed  a  sense  of  sculpture  as  well  as 
a  sense  of  poetry ;  and  in  the  contemporary  thea- 
tre the  playwright  must  manifest  the  imagination 
of  the  painter  as  well  as  the  imagination  of  the 
man  of  letters.  The  appeal  of  a  play  is  primarily 
visual  rather  than  auditory.  On  the  contemporary 
stage,  characters  properly  costumed  must  be  ex- 
hibited within  a  carefully  designed  and  painted 
setting  illuminated  with  appropriate  effects  of 
light  and  shadow;  and  the  art  of  music  is  often 
called  upon  to  render  incidental  aid  to  the  general 
impression.  The  dramatist,  therefore,  must  be 
endowed  not  only  with  the  literary  sense,  but  also 
with  a  clear  eye  for  the  graphic  and  plastic  ele- 
ments of  pictorial  effect,  a  sense  of  rhythm  and 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  5 

of  music,  and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  art  of 
acting.  Since  the  dramatist  must,  at  the  same  time 
and  in  the  same  work,  harness  and  harmonise  the 
methods  of  so  many  of  the  arts,  it  would  be  uncrit- 
ical to  centre  studious  consideration  solely  on  his 
dialogue  and  to  praise  him  or  condemn  him  on  the 
literary  ground  alone. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  the  very  greatest  plays 
have  always  been  great  literature  as  well  as  great 
drama.  The  purely  literary  element  —  the  final 
touch  of  style  in  dialogue  —  is  the  only  sure  anti- 
dote against  the  opium  of  time.  Now  that  JEs- 
chylus  is  no  longer  performed  as  a  playwright,  we 
read  him  as  a  poet.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
should  remember  that  the  main  reason  why  he  is  no 
longer  played  is  that  his  dramas  do  not  fit  the  mod- 
em theatre, —  an  edifice  totally  different  in  size 
and  shape  and  physical  appointments  from  that  in 
which  his  pieces  were  devised  to  be  presented.  In 
his  own  day  he  was  not  so  much  read  as  a  poet 
as  applauded  in  the  theatre  as  a  playwright;  and 
properly  to  appreciate  his  dramatic,  rather  than  his 
literary,  appeal,  we  must  reconstruct  in  our  imag- 
ination the  conditions  of  the  theatre  in  his  day. 
The  point  is  that  his  plays,  though  planned  pri- 
marily as  drama,  have  since  been  shifted  over,  by 
many  generations  of  critics  and  literary  students, 
into  the  adjacent  province  of  poetry ;  and  this  shift 
of  the  critical  point  of  view,  which  has  insured  the 


6    THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

immortality  of  ^schylus,  has  been  made  possible 
only  by  the  literary  merit  of  his  dialogue.  When 
a  play,  owing  to  altered  physical  conditions,  is 
tossed  out  of  the  theatre,  it  will  find  a  haven  in 
the  closet  only  if  it  be  greatly  written.  From  this 
fact  we  may  derive  the  practical  maxim  that  though 
a  skilful  playwright  need  not  write  greatly  in 
order  to  secure  the  plaudits  of  his  own  generation, 
he  must  cultivate  a  literary  excellence  if  he  wishes 
to  be  remembered  by  posterity. 

This  much  must  be  admitted  concerning  the  ulti- 
mate importance  of  the  literary  element  in  the 
drama.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  must  be  granted 
that  many  plays  that  stand  very  high  as  drama 
do  not  fall  within  the  range  of  literature.  A  typ- 
ical example  is  the  famous  melodrama  by  Den- 
nery  entitled  The  T-wo  Orphans.  This  play  has 
deservedly  held  the  stage  for  nearly  a  century,  and 
bids  fair  still  to  be  applauded  after  the  youngest 
critic  has  died.  It  is  undeniably  a  very  good  play. 
It  tells  a  thrilling  story  in  a  series  of  carefully 
graded  theatric  situations.  It  presents  nearly  a 
dozen  acting  parts  which,  though  scarcely  real  as 
characters,  are  yet  drawn  with  sufficient  fidelity 
to  fact  to  allow  the  performers  to  produce  a  strik- 
ing illusion  of  reality  during  the  two  hours*  traffic 
of  the  stage.  It  is,  to  be  sure  —  especially  in 
the  standard  English  translation  —  abominably 
written.     One  of  the  two  orphans  launches  wide- 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAYr  7 

eyed  upon  a  soliloquy  beginning,  "  Am  I  mad? 
.  .  .  Do  I  dream?  ";  and  such  sentences  as  the 
following  obtrude  themselves  upon  the  astounded 
ear, — "  If  you  persist  in  persecuting  me  in  this 
heartless  manner,  I  shall  inform  the  police." 
Nothing,  surely,  could  be  further  from  literature. 
Yet  thrill  after  thrill  is  conveyed,  by  visual  means, 
through  situations  artfully  contrived;  and  in  the 
sheer  excitement  of  the  moment,  the  audience  is 
made  incapable  of  noticing  the  pompous  mediocrity 
of  the  hnes. 

In  general,  it  should  be  frankly  understood  by 
students  of  the  theatre  that  an  audience  is  not  capa- 
ble of  hearing  whether  the  dialogue  of  a  play  is 
well  or  badly  written.  Such  a  critical  discrimina- 
tion would  require  an  extraordinary  nicety  of  ear, 
and  might  easily  be  led  astray,  in  one  direction  or 
the  other,  by  the  reading  of  the  actors.  The 
rhetoric  of  Massinger  must  have  sounded  like 
poetry  to  an  Elizabethan  audience  that  had  heard 
the  same  performers,  the  afternoon  before,  speak- 
ing lines  of  Shakespeare's.  If  Mr.  Forbes-Rob- 
ertson is  reading  a  poorly-written  part,  it  is  hard 
to  hear  that  the  lines  are,  in  themselves,  not  musi- 
cal. Literary  style  is,  even  for  accomplished  crit- 
ics, very  difficult  to  judge  in  the  theatre.  Some 
years  ago,  Mrs.  Fiske  presented  in  New  Y'ork  an 
English  adaptation  of  Paul  Heyse's  Mary  of  Mag- 
dala.     After  the  first  performance  —  at  which  I 


8    THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

did  not  happen  to  be  present  —  I  asked  several 
cultivated  people  who  had  heard  the  play  whether 
the  English  version  was  written  in  verse  or  in 
prose;  and  though  these  people  were  themselves 
actors  and  men  of  letters,  not  one  of  them  could 
tell  me.  Yet,  as  appeared  later,  when  the  play 
was  published,  the  English  dialogue  was  written  in 
blank  verse  by  no  less  a  poet  than  Mr.  William 
Winter.  If  such  an  elementary  distinction  as  that 
between  verse  and  prose  was  in  this  case  inaudible 
to  cultivated  ears,  how  much  harder  must  it  be 
for  the  average  audience  to  distinguish  between 
a  good  phrase  and  a  bad !  The  fact  is  that  literary 
style  is,  for  the  most  part,  wasted  on  an  audience. 
The  average  auditor  is  moved  mainly  by  the  emo- 
tional content  of  a  sentence  spoken  on  the  stage, 
and  pays  very  little  attention  to  the  form  of  words 
in  which  the  meaning  is  set  forth.  At  Hamlet's 
line,  "  Absent  thee  from  felicity  a  while  " —  which 
Matthew  Arnold,  with  impeccable  taste,  selected  as 
one  of  his  touchstones  of  literary  style  —  the 
thing  that  really  moves  the  audience  in  the  theatre 
is  not  the  perfectness  of  the  phrase  but  the  pathos 
of  Hamlet's  plea  for  his  best  friend  to  outlive 
him  and  explain  his  motives  to  a  world  grown 
harsh. 

That  the  content  rather  than  the  literary  turn 
of  dialogue  is  the  thing  that  counts  most  in  the 
theatre  will  be  felt  emphatically  if  we  compare 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  9 

the  mere  writing  of  Moliere  with  that  of  his  suc- 
cessor and  imitator,  Regnard.  Mohere  is  certainly 
a  great  writer,  in  the  sense  that  he  expresses  clearly 
and  precisely  the  thing  he  has  to  say ;  his  verse, 
as  well  as  his  prose,  is  admirably  lucid  and  emi- 
nently speakable.  But  assuredly,  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  word  is  generally  used,  Moliere  is  not  a 
poet;  and  it  ma}'  fairly  be  said  that,  in  the  usual 
connotation  of  the  term,  he  has  no  style.  Reg- 
nard, on  the  other  hand,  is  more  nearly  a  poet,  and, 
from  the  standpoint  of  style,  writes  vastly  better 
verse.  He  has  a  lilting  fluency  that  flowers  every 
now  and  then  into  a  plirase  of  golden  melody.  Yet 
Moliere  is  so  immcasural^ly  his  superior  as  a  play- 
wright that  most  critics  instinctively  set  Regnard 
far  below  him  even  as  a  writer.  There  can  be  no 
question  that  M.  Rostand  writes  better  verse  than 
Emile  Augier;  but  there  can  be  no  question,  also, 
that  Augier  is  the  greater  dramatist.  Oscar  Wilde 
probably  wrote  more  clever  and  witty  lines  than 
any  other  author  in  the  whole  history  of  English 
comedy ;  but  no  one  would  think  of  setting  him  in 
the  class  with  Congreve  and  Sheridan. 

It  is  by  no  means  my  intention  to  suggest  that 
great  writing  is  not  desirable  in  the  drama;  but 
the  point  must  be  emphasised  that  it  is  not  a  nec- 
essary element  in  the  immediate  merit  of  a  play  ajr 
a  play.  In  fact,  excellent  plays  have  often  been 
presented   without   the   use   of  any   words   at   all. 


10   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Pantomime  has,  in  every  age,  been  recognised  as  a 
legitimate  department  of  the  drama.  Only  a  few 
years  ago,  Mme.  Charlotte  Wiehe  acted  in  New 
York  a  one-act  play,  entitled  La  Main,  which  held 
the  attention  enthralled  for  forty-five  minutes  dur- 
ing which  no  word  was  spoken.  The  little  piece 
told  a  thrilling  story  with  entire  clearness  and 
coherence,  and  exhibited  three  characters  fully  and 
distinctly  drawn;  and  it  secured  this  achievement 
by  visual  means  alone,  with  no  recourse  whatever 
to  the  spoken  word.  Here  was  a  work  which  by 
no  stretch  of  terminology  could  have  been  included 
In  the  category  of  literature ;  and  yet  it  was  a  very 
good  play,  and  as  drama  was  far  superior  to  many 
a  literary  masterpiece  in  dialogue  like  Browning's 
In  a  Balcony. 

Lest  this  instance  seem  too  exceptional  to  be 
taken  as  representative,  let  us  remember  that 
throughout  an  entire  important  period  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  stage,  it  was  customary  for  the  actors 
to  improvise  the  lines  that  they  spoke  before  the 
audience.  I  refer  to  the  period  of  the  so-called 
commedia  delVarte,  which  flourished  all  over  Italy 
throughout  the  sixteenth  century.  A  synopsis  of 
the  play  —  partly  narrative  and  partly  exposi- 
tory —  was  posted  up  behind  the  scenes.  This 
account  of  what  was  to  happen  on  the  stage  was 
known  technically  as  a  scenario.  The  actors  con- 
sulted this  scenario  before  they  made  an  entrance. 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  11 

and  then  in  the  acting  of  the  scene  spoke  whatever 
words  occurred  to  them.  Harlequin  made  love 
to  Columbine  and  quarreled  with  Pantaloon  in  new 
lines  every  night;  and  the  drama  gained  both 
spontaneity  and  freshness  from  the  fact  that  it 
was  created  anew  at  each  performance.  Undoubt- 
edly, if  an  actor  scored  with  a  clever  line,  he  would 
remember  it  for  use  in  a  subsequent  presentation; 
and  in  this  way  the  dialogue  of  a  comedy  must  have 
gradually  become  more  or  less  fixed  and,  in  a  sense, 
written.  But  this  secondary  task  of  formulating 
the  dialogue  was  left  to  the  performers;  and  the 
playwright  contented  himself  with  the  primary  task 
of  planning  the  plot. 

The  case  of  the  commedia  delVarte  is,  of  course, 
extreme;  but  it  emphasises  the  fact  that  the  prob-  ^y 
lem  of  the  dramatist  is  less  a  task  of  writing  than 
a  task  of  constructing.  His  primary  concern  is 
so  to  build  a  story  that  it  will  tell  itself  to  the  eye 
of  the  audience  in  a  series  of  shifting  pictures. 
Any  really  good  play  can,  to  a  great  extent,  be 
appreciated  even  though  it  be  acted  in  a  foreign 
language.  American  students  in  New  York  may 
find  in  the  Yiddish  dramas  of  the  Bowery  an  em- 
phatic ilhistration  of  how  closely  a  piece  may  be 
followed  by  an  auditor  who  does  not  understand 
the  words  of  a  single  line.  The  recent  extraor- 
dinary development  in  the  art  of  the  moving  pic- 
ture, especially  in  France,  has  taught  us  that  many 


12   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

well-known  plays  may  be  presented  in  pantomime 
and  reproduced  by  the  kinetoscope,  with  no  essen- 
tial loss  of  intelligibility  through  the  suppression 
of  the  dialogue.  Sardou,  as  represented  by  the 
biograph,  is  no  longer  a  man  of  letters ;  but  he  re- 
mains, scarcely  less  evidently  than  in  the  ordinary 
theatre,  a  skilful  and  effective  playwright.  Ham- 
let, that  masterpiece  of  meditative  poetry,  would 
still  be  a  good  play  if  it  were  shown  in  moving  pic- 
tures. Much,  of  course,  would  be  sacrificed 
through  the  subversion  of  its  literary  element ;  but 
its  essential  interest  as  a  play  would  yet  remain  ap- 
parent through  the  unassisted  power  of  its  visual 
appeal. 

There  can  be  no  question  that,  however  impor- 
tant may  be  the  dialogue  of  a  drama,  the  scenario 
is  even  more  important;  and  from  a  full  scenario 
alone,  before  a  line  of  dialogue  is  written,  it  is 
possible  in  most  cases  to  determine  whether  a  pros- 
pective play  is  inherently  good  or  bad.  Most  con- 
temporary dramatists,  therefore,  postpone  the  ac- 
tual writing  of  their  dialogue  until  they  have 
worked  out  their  scenario  in  minute  detail.  They 
begin  by  separating  and  grouping  their  narrative 
materials  into  not  more  than  three  or  four  distinct 
pigeon-holes  of  time  and  place, —  thereby  dividing 
their  story  roughly  into  acts.  They  then  plan  a 
stage-setting  for  each  act,  employing  whatever  ac- 
cessories     may  be   necessary   for  the  action.     If 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  18 

papers  are  to  be  burned,  they  introduce  a  fire- 
place; if  somebody  is  to  throw  a  pistol  through 
a  window,  they  set  the  window  in  a  convenient  and 
emphatic  place;  they  determine  how  many  chairs 
and  tables  and  settees  are  demanded  for  the  nar- 
rative; if  a  piano  or  a  bed  is  needed,  they  place  it 
here  or  there  upon  the  floor-plan  of  their  stage, 
according  to  the  prominence  they  wish  to  give  it; 
and  when  all  such  points  as  these  have  been  de- 
termined, they  draw  a  detailed  map  of  the  stage- 
setting  for  the  act.  As  their  next  step,  most  play- 
wrights, with  this  map  before  them,  and  using  a  set 
of  chess-men  or  other  convenient  concrete  objects 
to  represent  their  characters,  move  the  pieces  about 
upon  the  stage  through  the  successive  scenes,  de- 
termine in  detail  where  every  character  is  to  stand 
or  sit  at  nearly  every  moment,  and  note  down  what 
he  is  to  think  and  feel  and  talk  about  at  the  time. 
Only  after  the  entire  play  has  been  planned  out 
thus  minutely  does  the  average  playwright  turn 
back  to  the  beginning  and  commence  to  write  his 
dialogue.  He  completes  his  primary  task  of  play- 
making  before  he  begins  his  secondary  task  of 
play-writing.  Many  of  our  established  drama- 
tists—  like  the  late  Clyde  Fitcli,  for  example  — 
sell  their  plays  when  the  scenario  is  finished,  ar- 
range for  the  production,  select  the  actors,  and 
afterwards  write  the  dialogue  with  the  chosen  ac- 
tors constantly  in  mind. 


14   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

This   summary   statement   of  the   usual   process 
may  seem,  perhaps,  to  cast  excessive  emphasis  on 
the  constructive  phase  of  the  playwright's  prob- 
lem ;  and  allowance  must  of  course  be  made  for  the 
divergent    mental    habits    of    individual    authors. 
But  almost  any  playwright  will  tell  you  that  he 
feels  as  if  his  task  were  practically  finished  when 
he  arrives  at  the  point  when  he  finds  himself  pre- 
pared to  begin  the  writing  of  his  dialogue.     This 
accounts  for  the  otherwise  unaccountable  rapidity 
with  which  many  of  the  great  plays  of  the  world 
have  been  written.     Dumas  fils  retired  to  the  coun- 
try and  wrote  La  Dame  aux  Camelias  —  a  four- 
act  play  —  in  eight  successive  days.     But  he  had 
previously  told  the  same  story  in  a  novel ;  he  knew 
everything  that  was  to  happen  in  his  play;  and 
the  mere  writing  could  be  done  in  a  single  head- 
long   dash.     Voltaire's    best   tragedy,    Zaire,    was 
written   in   three   weeks.     Victor   Hugo    composed 
Marion  Delorme  between   June   1    and   June   24, 
1829;  and  when  the  piece  was  interdicted  by  the 
censor,  he  immediately  turned  to  another  subject 
and  wrote  Hernani  in  the  next  three  weeks.     The 
fourth  act   of  Marion  Delorme  was  written   in   a 
single  day.     Here  apparently  was  a  very  fever  of 
composition.     But  again  we  must  remember  that 
both  of  these  plays  had  been  devised  before  the  au- 
thor began  to  write  them ;  and  when  he  took  his  pen 
in  hand  he  had  already  been  working  on  them  in 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  15 

scenario  for  probably  a  year.  To  write  ten  acts 
in  Alexandrines,  with  feminine  rhymes  alternating 
with  masculine,  was  still,  to  be  sure,  an  appalling 
task;  but  Hugo  was  a  facile  and  prolific  poet,  and 
could  write  very  quickly  after  he  had  determined 
exactly  what  it  was  he  had  to  write. 

It  was  with  all  of  the  foregoing  points  in  mind 
that,  in  the  opening  sentence  of  this  chapter,  I  de- 
fined a  play  as  a  story  "  devised,"  rather  than  a 
story  "  written."  We  may  now  consider  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  next  phrase  of  that  definition, 
which  states  that  a  play  is  devised  to  be  "  £re- 
^ented,"  rather  than  to  be  "  read." 

The  only  way  in  which  it  is  possible  to  study 
most  of  the  great  plays  of  b3'gone  ages  is  to  read 
the  record  of  their  dialogue ;  and  this  necessity  has 
led  to  tl>c  academic  fallacy  of  considering  great 
plays  primarily  as  compositions  to  be  read.  In 
their  own  age,  however,  these  very  plays  which  we 
now  read  in  the  closet  were  intended  primarily  to 
be  presented  on  the  stage.  Really  to  read  a  play 
requires  a  very  special  and  difficult  exercise  of 
visual  imagination.  It  is  necessary  not  only  to 
appreciate  the  dialogue,  but  also  to  project  be- 
fore tile  mind's  eye  a  vivid  imagined  rendition  of 
the  visual  aspect  of  the  action.  This  is  the  reason 
why  most  managers  and  stage-directors  are  unable 
to  judge  conclusively  the  merits  and  defects  of  a 
new  play  from  reading  it  in  manuscript.     One  of 


16   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

our  most  subtle  artists  in  stage-direction,  Mr. 
Henry  Miller,  once  confessed  to  the  present  writer 
that  he  could  never  decide  whether  a  prospective 
play  was  good  or  bad  until  he  had  seen  it  re- 
hearsed by  actors  on  a  stage.  Mr.  Augustus 
Thomas's  unusually  successful  farce  entitled  Mrs. 
Leffingweirs  Boots  was  considered  a  failure  by  its 
producing  managers  until  the  very  last  rehearsals, 
because  it  depended  for  its  finished  effect  on  many 
intricate  and  rapid  intermovements  of  the  actors, 
which  until  the  last  moment  were  understood  and 
realised  only  in  the  mind  of  the  playwright.  The 
same  author's  best  and  most  successful  play,  The 
Witching  Hour,  was  declined  by  several  managers 
before  it  was  ultimately  accepted  for  production ; 
and  the  reason  was,  presumably,  that  its  extraor- 
dinary merits  were  not  manifest  from  a  mere  read- 
ing of  the  lines.  If  professional  producers  may 
go  so  far  astray  in  their  judgment  of  the  merits  of 
a  manuscript,  how  much  harder  must  it  be  for  the 
layman  to  judge  a  play  solely  from  a  reading  of 
the  dialogue ! 

This  fact  should  lead  the  professors  and  the 
students  in  our  colleges  to  adopt  a  very  tentative 
attitude  toward  judging  the  dramatic  merits  of 
the  plays  of  other  ages.  Shakespeare,  considered 
as  a  poet,  is  so  immeasurably  superior  to  Dryden, 
that  it  is  difficult  for  the  college  student  unfamiliar 
with  the  theatre  to  realise  that  the  former's  Antony 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  17 

and  Cleopatra  is,  considered  solely  as  a  play,  far 
inferior  to  the  latter's  dramatisation  of  the  same 
story,  entitled  All  for  Love,  or  The  World  Well 
Lost.  Shakespeare's  play  upon  this  subject  fol- 
lows closely  the  chronolog-y  of  Plutarch's  nan'a- 
tive,  and  is  merely  dramatised  history  ;  but  Dryden's 
play  is  reconstructed  with  a  more  practical  sense 
of  economy'  and  emphasis,  and  deserves  to  be  re- 
garded as  historical  drama.  Cymheline  is,  in  many 
passages,  so  greatl3'  written  that  it  is  hard  for 
the  closet-student  to  realise  that  it  is  a  bad  play, 
even  when  considered  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
Elizabethan  theatre, —  whereas  Othello  and  Mac- 
beth, for  instance,  are  great  plays,  not  only  of  their 
age  but  for  all  time.  King  Lear  is  probably  a 
more  sublime  poem  than  Othello;  and  it  is  only  by 
seeing  the  two  pieces  performed  equally  well  in 
the  theatre  that  we  can  appreciate  by  what  a  wide 
margin    Othello  is  the  better  play. 

This  practical  point  has  been  felt  emphatically 
by  the  very  greatest  dramatists ;  and  this  fact  of- 
fers, of  course,  an  explanation  of  the  otherwise 
inexplicable  negligence  of  such  authors  as  Shake- 
speare and  Molierc  in  the  matter  of  publishing  their 
plays.  These  supreme  playwrights  wanted  people 
to  see  their  pieces  in  the  theatre  rather  than  to  read 
them  In  the  closet.  In  his  own  lifetime,  Shake- 
speare, who  was  very  scrupulous  about  the  jjubllc-a- 
tion  of  his  sonnets  and  his  narrative  poems,  printed 


18   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

a  carefully  edited  text  of  his  plays  only  when  he 
was  forced,  in  self-defense,  to  do  so,  by  the  prior 
appearance  of  corrupt  and  pirated  editions;  and 
we  owe  our  present  knowledge  of  several  of  his 
dramas  merely  to  the  business  acumen  of  two  ac- 
tors who,  seven  years  after  his  death,  conceived 
the  practical  idea  that  they  might  turn  an  easy 
penny  by  printing  and  offering  for  sale  the  text 
of  several  popular  plays  which  the  public  had 
already  seen  performed.  Sardou,  who,  like  most 
French  dramatists,  began  by  publishing  his  plays, 
carefully  withheld  from  print  the  master-efforts 
of  his  prime;  and  even  such  dramatists  as  habitu- 
ally print  their  plays  prefer  nearly  always  to  have 
them  seen  first  and  read  only  afterwards. 

In  elucidation  of  what  might  otherwise  seem 
perversity  on  the  part  of  great  dramatic  authors 
like  Shakespeare,  we  must  remember  that  the  mas- 
ter-dramatists have  nearly  always  been  men  of  the 
theatre  rather  than  men  of  letters,  and  therefore 
naturally  more  avid  of  immediate  success  with  a 
contemporary  audience  than  of  posthumous  success 
with  a  posterity  of  readers.  Shakespeare  and 
Moliere  were  actors  and  theatre-managers,  and  de- 
vised their  plays  primarily  for  the  patrons  of  the 
Globe  and  the  Palais  Royal.  Ibsen,  who  is  often 
taken  as  a  type  of  the  literary  dramatist,  derived 
his  early  training  mainly  from  the  profession  of 
the  theatre  and  hardly  at  all  from  the  profession 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  19 

of  letters.  For  half  a  dozen  years,  during  the 
formative  period  of  his  twenties,  he  acted  as  pro- 
ducing manager  of  the  National  Theatre  in  Ber- 
gen, and  learned  the  tricks  of  his  trade  from  stud}'- 
ing  the  masterpieces  of  contemporary  drama, 
mainly  of  the  French  school.  In  his  own  work, 
he  began,  in  such  pieces  as  Lady  Inger  of  Ostrat, 
by  imitating  and  applying  the  formulas  of  Scribe 
and  the  earlier  Sardou ;  and  it  was  only  after  many 
years  that  he  marched  forward  to  a  technique  en- 
tirely his  own.  Both  Sir  Arthur  Wing  Pinero  and 
Mr.  Stephen  Phillips  began  their  theatrical  career 
as  actors.  On  the  other  hand,  men  of  letters  who 
have  written  works  primarily  to  be  read  have  al- 
most never  succeeded  as  dramatists.  In  England, 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  the  following  great 
poets  all  tried  their  hands  at  plays  —  Scott, 
Southey,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Byron,  Shelley, 
Keats,  Browning,  Mrs.  Browning,  Matthew  Ar- 
nold, Swinburne,  and  Tennyson  —  and  not  one  of 
them  produced  a  work  of  any  considerable  value 
from  the  standpoint  of  dramatic  criticism.  Ten- 
nyson, in  Becket,  came  nearer  to  the  mark  than 
any  of  the  others ;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that,  in  this 
work,  he  had  the  advantage  of  the  advice  and,  in 
a  sense,  collaboration  of  Sir  Henry  Irving. 

The  familiar  phrase  "  closet-drama  "  is  a  con- 
tradiction of  terms.  The  species  of  literary  com- 
position  in   dialogue   that   is   ordinarily   so   desig- 


20   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

nated  occupies  a  thoroughW  legitimate  position  in 
the  realm  of  literature,  but  no  position  whatsoever 
in  the  realm  of  dramaturgy.  Atalanta  in  Calydon 
is  a  great  poem ;  but  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
theory  of  the  theatre,  it  cannot  be  considered  as 
a  play.  Like  the  lyric  poems  of  the  same  author, 
it  was  written  to  be  read;  and  it  was  not  devised 
to  be  presented  by  actors  on  a  stage  before  an 
audience. 

We  may  now  consider  the  significance  of  the 
three  concluding  phrases  of  the  definition  of  a 
play  which  was  offered  at  the  outset  of  the  pres- 
ent chapter.  These  phrases  indicate  the  immanence 
of  three  influences  by  which  the  work  of  the  play- 
wright is  constantly  conditioned. 

In  the  first  place,  by  the  fact  that  the  dramatist 
is  devising  his  story  for  the  use  of  actors,  he  is 
definitely  limited  both  in  respect  to  the  kind  of 
characters  he  may  create  and  in  respect  to  the 
means  he  may  employ  in  order  to  delineate  them. 
In  actual  life  we  meet  characters  of  two  different 
classes,  which  (borrowing  a  pair  of  adjectives  from 
the  terminology  of  physics)  we  may  denominate 
dynamic  characters  and  static  characters.  But 
when  an  actor  appears  upon  the  stage,  he  wants  to 
act;  and  the  dramatist  is  therefore  obliged  to  con- 
fine his  attention  to  dynamic  characters,  and  to  ex- 
clude static  characters  almost  entirely  from  the 
range  of  his  creation.     The  essential  trait  of  all 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  21 

dynamic  characters  is  the  preponderance  within 
them  of  the  element  of  will;  and  the  persons  of  a 
play  must  therefore  be  people  with  active  wills 
and  emphatic  intentions.  When  such  people  are 
brought  into  juxtaposition,  there  necessarily  re- 
sults a  clash  of  contending  desires  and  purposes ; 
and  by  this  fact  we  are  led  logically  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  proper  subject-matter  of  the  drama 
is  a  struggle  between  contrasted  human  wills.  The 
same  conclusion,  as  we  shall  notice  in  the  next 
chapter,  may  be  reached  logically  by  deduction 
from  the  natural  demands  of  an  assembled  audi- 
ence; and  the  subject  will  be  discussed  more  fully 
during  the  course  of  our  study  of  The  Psychology 
of  Theatre  Audiences.  At  present  it  is  sufficient  for 
us  to  note  that  every  great  play  that  has  ever  been 
devised  has  presented  some  phase  or  other  of  this 
single,  necessary  theme, —  a  contention  of  indi- 
vidual human  wills.  An  actor,  moreover,  is  always 
more  effective  in  scenes  of  emotion  than  in  scenes 
of  cold  logic  and  calm  reason ;  and  the  dramatist, 
therefore,  is  obliged  to  select  as  his  leading  figures 
people  whose  acts  are  motivated  by  emotion  rather 
than  by  intellect.  Aristotle,  for  example,  would 
make  a  totally  uninteresting  figure  if  he  were  pre- 
sented faithfully  upon  the  stage.  Who  could  im- 
agine Darwin  as  the  hero  of  a  drama?  Othello,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  not  at  all  a  reasonable  being; 
from  first  to  last  his  intellect  is  "  perplexed  in  the 


22   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

extreme."  His  emotions  are  the  motives  for  his 
acts ;  and  in  this  he  may  be  taken  as  the  type  of  a 
dramatic  character. 

In  the  means  of  delineating  the  characters  he 
has  imagined,  the  dramatist,  because  he  is  writing 
for  actors,  is  more  narrowly  restricted  than  the 
novelist.  His  people  must  constantly  be  doing 
something,  and  must  therefore  reveal  themselves 
mainly  through  their  acts.  They  may,  of  course, 
also  be  delineated  through  their  way  of  saying 
things;  but  in  the  theatre  the  objective  action  is 
always  more  suggestive  than  the  spoken  word.  We 
know  Sherlock  Holmes,  in  Mr.  William  Gillette's 
admirable  melodrama,  solely  through  the  things 
that  we  have  seen  him  do;  and  in  this  connection 
we  should  remember  that  in  the  stories  by  Sir 
Arthur  Conan  Doyle  from  which  Mr.  Gillette  de- 
rived his  narrative  material,  Holmes  is  delineated 
largely  by  a  very  different  method, —  the  method, 
namely,  of  expository  comment  written  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Doctor  Watson.  A  leading  actor 
seldom  wants  to  sit  in  his  dressing-room  while  he 
is  being  talked  about  by  the  other  actors  on  the 
stage;  and  therefore  the  method  of  drawing  char- 
acter by  comment,  which  is  so  useful  for  the  nov- 
elist, is  rarely  employed  by  the  playwright  except 
in  the  waste  moments  which  precede  the  first  en- 
trance of  his  leading  figure.  The  Chorus  Lady,  in 
Mr.  James  Forbes's  amusing  study  of  that  name,  is 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  23 

drawn  chiefly  through  her  way  of  saying  things ; 
but  though  this  method  of  delineation  is  sometimes 
very  effective  for  an  act  or  two,  it  can  seldom  be 
sustained  without  a  faltering  of  interest  through 
a  full-grown  four-act  play.  The  novelist's  expedi- 
ent of  delineating  character  through  mental  analy- 
sis is  of  course  denied  the  dramatist,  especially  in 
this  modern  age  when  the  soliloquy  (for  reasons 
which  will  be  noted  in  a  subsequent  chapter)  is 
usually  frowned  upon.  Sometimes,  in  the  theatre, 
a  character  may  be  exhibited  chiefly  through  his 
personal  eff'ect  upon  the  other  people  on  the  stage, 
and  thereby  indirectly  on  the  people  in  the  audi- 
ence. It  was  in  this  way,  of  course,  that  Manson 
was  delineated  in  Mr.  Charles  Rann  Kennedy's  The 
Servant  in  the  House.  But  the  expedient  is  a 
dangerous  one  for  the  dramatist  to  use ;  because  it 
makes  his  work  immediately  dependent  on  the  ac- 
tor chosen  for  the  leading  role,  and  may  in  many 
cases  render  his  play  impossible  of  attaining  its 
full  eff'ect  except  at  the  hands  of  a  single  great 
performer.  In  recent  years  an  expedient  long  fa- 
miliar in  the  novel  has  been  transferred  to  the 
service  of  the  stage, —  the  expedient,  namely,  of 
suggesting  the  personality  of  a  character  through 
a  visual  presentation  of  his  habitual  environment. 
After  the  curtain  had  been  raised  upon  the  first 
act  of  The  Music  Master,  and  the  audience  had 
been  given  time  to  look  about  the  room  which  was 


24,   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

represented  on  the  stage,  the  main  traits  of  the 
leading  character  had  already  been  suggested  be- 
fore his  first  appearance  on  the  scene.  The  pic- 
tures and  knickknacks  on  his  mantelpiece  told  us, 
before  we  ever  saw  him,  what  manner  of  man  he 
was.  But  such  subtle  means  as  this  can,  after  all, 
be  used  only  to  reinforce  the  one  standard  method 
of  conveying  the  sense  of  character  in  drama ;  and 
this  one  method,  owing  to  the  conditions  under 
which  the  playwright  does  his  work,  must  always 
be  the  exhibition  of  objective  acts. 

In  all  these  general  ways  the  work  of  the  drama- 
tist is  affected  by  the  fact  that  he  must  devise  his 
story  to  be  presented  by  actors.  The  specific  in- 
fluence exerted  over  the  playwright  by  the  indi- 
vidual performer  is  a  subject  too  extensive  to  be 
covered  by  a  mere  summary  consideration  in  the 
present  context;  and  we  shall  therefore  discuss  it 
fully  in  a  later  chapter,  entitled  The  Actor  and  the 
Dramatist. 

At  present  we  must  pass  on  to  observe  that,  in 
the  second  place,  the  work  of  the  dramatist  is  con- 
ditioned by  the  fact  that  he  must  plan  his  plays  to 
fit  the  sort  of  theatre  that  stands  ready  to  receive 
them.  A  fundamental  and  necessary  relation  has 
always  existed  between  theatre-building  and 
theatric  art.  The  best  plays  of  any  period  have 
been  fashioned  in  accordance  with  the  physical 
conditions    of   the    best   theatres    of   that    period. 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  25 

Therefore,  in  order  fully  to  appreciate  such  a  play 
as  CEdipus  King,  it  is  necessary  to  imagine  the 
theatre  of  Dionysus;  and  in  order  to  understand 
thoroughly  the  dramaturgy  of  Shakespeare  and 
Moliere,  it  is  necessary  to  reconstruct  in  retrospect 
the  altered  inn-yard  and  the  converted  tennis-court 
for  which  they  planned  their  plays.  It  may  seri- 
ously be  doubted  that  the  works  of  these  earlier  mas- 
ters gain  more  than  they  lose  from  being  produced 
with  the  elaborate  scenic  accessories  of  the  modern 
stage;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  modem  play  by 
Ibsen  or  Pinero  would  lose  three-fourths  of  its 
effect  if  it  were  acted  in  the  Elizabethan  manner, 
or  produced  without  scenery  (let  us  say)  in  the 
Roman  theatre  at  Orange. 

Since,  in  all  ages,  the  size  and  shape  and  phys- 
ical appointments  of  the  theatre  have  determined 
for  the  playwright  the  form  and  structure  of  his 
plays,  we  may  always  explain  the  stock  conventions 
of  any  period  of  the  drama  by  referring  to  the 
physical  aspect  of  the  theatre  in  that  period.  Let 
us  consider  briefly,  for  purposes  of  illustration, 
certain  obvious  ways  in  which  the  art  of  the  great 
Greek  tragic  dramatists  was  affected  by  the  nature 
of  the  Attic  stage.  Tlie  theatre  of  Dionysus  was 
an  enormous  edifice  can'cd  out  of  a  hillside.  It 
was  so  large  that  the  dramatists  were  obliged  to 
deal  only  with  subjects  that  were  traditional, — 
stories  which  had  long  been  familiar  to  the  entire 


26   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

theatre-going  public,  including  the  poorer  and  less 
educated  spectators  who  sat  farthest  from  the  ac- 
tors. Since  most  of  the  audience  was  grouped 
above  the  stage  and  at  a  considerable  distance,  the 
actors,  in  order  not  to  appear  dwarfed,  were  obliged 
to  w^alk  on  stilted  boots.  A  performer  so  accoutred 
could  not  move  impetuously  or  enact  a  scene  of 
violence;  and  this  practical  limitation  is  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  measured  and  majestic  move- 
ment of  Greek  tragedy,  and  the  convention  that 
murders  and  other  violent  deeds  must  always  be 
imagined  off  the  stage  and  be  merely  recounted  to 
the  audience  by  messengers.  Facial  expression 
could  not  be  seen  in  so  large  a  theatre;  and  the 
actors  therefore  wore  masks,  conventionalised  to 
represent  the  dominant  mood  of  a  character  during 
a  scene.  This  limitation  forced  the  performer  to 
depend  for  his  effect  mainly  on  his  voice;  and 
Greek  tragedy  was  therefore  necessarily  more 
lyrical  than  later  types  of  drama. 

The  few  points  which  we  have  briefly  touched 
upon  are  usually  explained,  by  academic  critics,  on 
literary  grounds ;  but  it  is  surely  more  sane  to  ex- 
plain them  on  grounds  of  common  sense,  in  the 
light  of  what  we  know  of  the  conditions  of  the 
Attic  stage.  Similarly,  it  would  be  easy  to  show 
how  Terence  and  Calderon,  Shakespeare  and 
Moliere,  adapted  the  form  of  their  plays  to  the 
form   of  their  theatres;  but  enough  has  already 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  27 

been  said  to  indicate  the  principle  which  underlies 
this  particular  phase  of  the  theory  of  the  theatre. 
The  successive  changes  in  the  physical  aspect  of 
the  English  theatre  during  the  last  three  centuries 
have  all  tended  toward  greater  naturalness,  inti- 
mac}',  and  subtlet}',  in  the  drama  itself  and  in  the 
physical  aids  to  its  presentment.  This  progi*ess, 
with  its  constant  illustration  of  the  interdepend- 
ence of  the  drama  and  the  stage,  may  most  con- 
veniently be  studied  in  historical  review;  and  to 
such  a  review  we  shall  devote  a  special  chapter,  en- 
titled Stage  Conventions  in  Modern  Times. 

We  may  now  observe  that,  in  the  third  place,  the 
essential  nature  of  the  drama  is  affected  greatly  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  destined  to  be  set  before  an  audi- 
ence. The  dramatist  must  appeal  at  once  to  a 
heterogeneous  multitude  of  people;  and  the  full 
effect  of  this  condition  will  be  investigated  in  a 
special  chapter  on  The  Psychology  of  Theatre 
Audiences.  In  an  important  sense,  the  audience 
is  a  party  to  the  play,  and  collaborates  with  the 
actors  in  the  presentation.  This  fact,  which  re- 
mains often  unappreciated  by  academic  critics,  is 
familiar  to  everyone  who  has  had  any  practical 
association  with  the  theatre.  It  is  almost  never  pos- 
sible, even  for  trained  dramatic  critics,  to  tell  from 
a  final  drcss-rchcarsal  in  an  empty  house  which 
scenes  of  a  new  play  arc  fully  effective  and  which 
arc  not ;  and  the  reason  why,  in  America,  new  plays 


28   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

are  tried  out  on  the  road  is  not  so  much  to  give 
the  actors  practice  in  their  parts,  as  to  determine, 
from  the  effect  of  the  piece  upon  provincial  audi- 
ences, whether  it  is  worthy  of  a  metropolitan 
presentation.  The  point  is,  as  we  shall  notice  in 
the  next  chapter,  that  since  a  play  is  devised 
for  a  crowd  it  cannot  finally  be  judged  by  indi- 
viduals. 

The  dependence  of  the  dramatist  upon  his  audi- 
ence may  be  illustrated  by  the  history  of  many  im- 
portant plays,  which,  though  effective  In  their  own 
age,  have  become  ineffective  for  later  generations, 
solely  because  they  were  founded  on  certain  general 
principles  of  conduct  in  which  the  world  has  sub- 
sequently ceased  to  believe.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  its  own  period,  The  Maid's  Tragedy  of 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
very  greatest  of  Elizabethan  plays ;  but  it  would 
be  ineffective  in  the  modern  theatre,  because  it  pre- 
supposes a  principle  which  a  contemporary  audi- 
ence would  not  accept.  It  was  devised  for  an 
audience  of  aristocrats  in  the  reign  of  James  I, 
and  the  dramatic  struggle  is  founded  upon  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Amintor, 
in  the  play,  has  suffered  a  profound  personal  in- 
jury at  the  hands  of  his  sovereign ;  but  he  cannot 
avenge  this  individual  disgrace,  because  he  is  a  sub- 
ject of  the  royal  malefactor.  The  crisis  and  turn- 
ing-point of  the  entire  drama  is  a  scene  in  which 


WHAT  IS  A  PLAY?  29 

Amintor,  with  the  king  at  his  mercy,  lowers  his 
sword  with  the  words: — 

But  there  is 
Divinity  about  you,  that  strikes  dead 
My  rising  passions:  as  you  are  my  king, 
I   fall  before  you,  and  present  my  sword 
To  cut  mine  own  flesh,  if  it  be  your  will. 

We  may  imagine  the  applause  of  the  courtiers  of 
James  Stuart,  the  Presumptuous ;  but  never  since 
the  Cromwellian  revolution  has  that  scene  been 
really  effective  on  the  English  stage.  In  order 
fully  to  appreciate  a  dramatic  struggle,  an  audi- 
ence must  sympathise  with  the  motives  that  occa- 
sion it. 

It  should  now  be  evident,  as  was  suggested  at 
the  outset,  that  all  the  leading  principles  of  the 
theory  of  the  theatre  may  be  deduced  logically 
from  the  axiom  which  was  stated  in  the  first  sen- 
tence of  this  chapter;  and  that  axiom  should  con- 
stantly be  borne  in  mind  as  the  basis  of  all  our 
subsequent  discussions.  But  in  view  of  several  im- 
portant points  which  have  already  come  up  for 
consideration,  it  may  be  profitable,  before  relin- 
quishing our  initial  question,  to  redefine  a  play 
more  fully  in  the  following  terms: — 

A  play  is  a  representation,  by  actors,  on  a  stage, 
before  an  audience,  of  a  struggle  between  individ- 
ual human  wills,  motivated  by  emotion  rather  than 
by  intellect,  and  expressc<l  in  terms  of  objective 
action. 


> 


II 


THE     PSYCHOLOGY    OF     THEATRE    AUDI- 
ENCES 


The  drama  is  the  only  art,  excepting  oratorj 
and  certain  forms  of  music,  that  is  designed  to 
appeal  to  a  crowd  instead  of  to  an  individual. 
The  lyric  poet  writes  for  himself,  and  for  such 
selected  persons  here  and  there  throughout  the 
world  as  may  be  wisely  sympathetic  enough  to  un- 
derstand his  musings.  The  essayist  and  the  novelist 
write  for  a  reader  sitting  alone  in  his  library : 
whether  ten  such  readers  or  a  hundred  thousand 
ultimately  read  a  book,  the  writer  speaks  to  each 
of  them  apart  from  all  the  others.  It  is  the  same 
with  painting  and  with  sculpture.  Though  a  pic- 
ture or  a  statue  may  be  seen  by  a  limitless  succession 
of  observers,  its  appeal  is  made  always  to  the  indi- 
vidual mind.  But  it  is  different  with  a  play.  Since  a 
drama  is,  in  essence,  a  story  devised  to  be  presented 
by  actors  on  a  stage  before  an  audience,  it  must 
necessarily  be  designed  to  appeal  at  once  to  a  multi- 
tude of  people.  We  have  to  be  alone  in  order  to 
appreciate  the  Venus  of  Melos  or  the  Sistine  Ma- 

30 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       31 

donna  or  the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale  or  the  Egoist 
or  the  Religio  Medici;  but  who  could  sit  alone  in 
a  wide  theatre  and  see  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  per- 
formed? The  sympathetic  presence  of  a  multitude 
of  people  would  be  as  necessary  to  our  apprecia- 
tion of  the  play  as  solitude  in  all  the  other  cases. 
And  because  the  drama  must  be  written  for  a  crowd, 
it  must  be  fashioned  differently  from  the  other,  and 
less  popular,  forms  of  art. 

No  writer  is  really  a  dramatist  unless  he  recog- 
nises this  distinction  of  appeal;  and  if  an  author 
is  not  accustomed  to  writing  for  the  crowd,  he  can 
hardly  hope  to  make  a  satisfying  play.  Tenny- 
son, the  perfect  poet ;  Browning,  the  master  of  the 
human  mind ;  Stevenson,  the  teller  of  enchanting 
tales :  —  each  of  them  failed  when  he  tried  to  make 
a  drama,  because  the  conditions  of  his  proper  art 
had^choojed  hiin  long  in  writing  for  the  individual 
instead  of  for  the  crowd.  A  literary  artist  who 
writes  for  the  individual  may  produce  a  great 
work  of  literature  that  is  cast  in  the  dramatic 
form ;  but  the  work  will  not  be,  in  the  practical 
sense,  a  play.  Samson  Agonistes,  Faust,  Pippa 
Passes,  Peer  Gynt,  and  the  early  dream-dramas  of 
Maurice  Maeterlinck,  are  something  else  than 
plays.  They  arc  not  devised  to  be  presented  by 
actors  on  a  stage  before  an  audience.  As  a  work 
of  literature,  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon  is  immeas- 
urably greater  than  The  Two  Orphans;  but  as  a 


32   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

play,  it  is  immeasurably  less.  For  even  though,  in 
this  particular  piece,  Browning  did  try  to  write 
for  the  theatre  (at  the  suggestion  of  Macready), 
he  employed  the  same  intricately  intellectual  method 
of  character  analysis  that  has  made  many  of  his 
poems  the  most  solitude-compelling  of  modern  lit- 
erary works.  Properly  to  appreciate  his  piece, 
you  must  be  alone,  just  as  you  must  be  alone  to 
read  A  Woman's  Last  Word.  It  is  not  written 
for  a  crowd;  The  Two  Orphans,  less  weighty  in 
wisdom,  is.     The  second  is  a  play. 

The  mightiest  masters  of  the  drama  —  Sopho- 
cles, Shakespeare,  and  Moliere  —  have  recognised 
the  popular  character  of  its  appeal  and  written 
frankly  for  the  multitude.  The  crowd,  therefore, 
has  exercised  a  potent  influence  upon  the  dramatist 
in  every  era  of  the  theatre.  One  person  the  lyric 
poet  has  to  please, —  himself ;  to  a  single  person 
only,  or  an  unlimited  succession  of  single  persons, 
does  the  novelist  address  himself,  and  he  may 
choose  the  sort  of  person  he  will  write  for;  but 
the  dramatist  must  always  please  the  many.  His 
themes,  his  thoughts,  his  emotions,  are  circum- 
scribed by  the  hmits  of  popular  appreciation.  He 
writes  less  freely  than  any  other  author;  for  he 
cannot  pick  his  auditors.  Mr.  Henry  James  may, 
if  he  choose,  write  novels  for  the  super-civilised ; 
but  a  crowd  is  never  super-civilised,  and  therefore 
characters  like  those  of  Mr.  James  could  never  be 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       33 

successfully  presented  in  the  theatre.  Treasure 
Island  is  a  book  for  boys,  both  young  and  old; 
but  a  modern  theatre  crowd  is  composed  largely  of 
women,  and  the  theme  of  such  a  story  could 
scarcely  be  successful  on  the  stage. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  understand  the  limitations 
of  the  drama  as  an  art,  and  clearly  to  define  its 
scope,  it  is  necessary  to  inquire  into  the  psychology 
of  theatre  audiences.  This  subject  presents  two 
phases  to  the  student.  First,  a  theatre  audience 
exhibits  certain  psychological  traits  that  are  com- 
mon to  all  crowds,  of  whatever  kind, —  a  political 
convention,  the  spectators  at  a  ball-game,  or  a 
church  congregation,  for  example.  Second,  it  ex- 
hibits certain  other  traits  which  distinguish  it  from 
other  kinds  of  crowds.  These,  in  turn,  will  be 
considered  in  the  present  chapter. 

n 

By  the  word  crowd,  as  it  is  used  in  this  discussion, 
is  meant  a  nmltitude  of  people  whose  ideas  and 
feelings  have  taken  a  set  in  a  certain  single  direc- 
tion, and  who,  because  of  this,  exhibit  a  tendency  / 
to  lose  their  individual  self-consciousness  in  the 
general  self-consciousness  of  the  multitude.  Any 
gathering  of  people  for  a  specific  purpose  — 
whether  of  action  or  of  worship  or  of  amusement 
—  tends  to  become,  because  of  this  purpose,  a 
crowd,  in  the  scientific  sense.     Now,  a  crowd  has 


34   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

a  mind  of  its  own,  apart  from  that  of  any  of  its 
individual  members.  The  psychology  of  the  crowd 
was  little  understood  until  late  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  a  great  deal  of  attention  was  turned 
to  it  by  a  group  of  French  philosophers.  The 
subject  has  been  most  fully  studied  by  M.  Gustave 
Le  Bon,  who  devoted  some  two  hundred  pages  to 
his  Psychologie  des  Foules.  According  to  M.  Le 
Bon,  a  man,  by  the  mere  fact  that  he  forms  a  fac- 
tor of  a  crowd,  tends  to  lose  consciousness  of  those 
mental  qualities  in  which  he  differs  from  his  fellows, 
and  becomes  more  keenly  conscious  than  before  of 
those  other  mental  qualities  in  which  he  is  at  one 
with  them.  The  mental  qualities  in  which  men 
differ  from  one  another  are  the  acquired  qualities 
of  intellect  and  character ;  but  the  qualities  in  which 
/  they  are  at  one  are  the  innate  basic  passions  of 
'  the  race.  A  crowd,  therefore,  is  less  intellectual 
*^and  more  emotional  than  the  individuals  that  com- 
pose it.  It  is  less  reasonable,  less  judicious,  less 
disinterested,  more  credulous,  more  primitive,  more 
partisan;  and  hence,  as  M.  Le  Bon  cleverly  puts 
it,  a  man,  by  the  mere  fact  that  he  forms  a  part 
of  an  organised  crowd,  is  likely  to  descend  several 
rungs  on  the  ladder  of  civilisation.  Even  the  most 
cultured  and  intellectual  of  men,  when  he  forms 
an  atom  of  a  crowd,  tends  to  lose  consciousness  of 
his  acquired  mental  qualities  and  to  revert  to  his 
primal   simplicity   and   sensitiveness  of  mind. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       35 

The  dramatist,  therefore,  because  he  writes  for  a  / 
crowd,  writes  for  a  comparatively  uncivihsed  and  \ 
uncultivated  mind,  a  mind  richly  human,  vehement 
in  approbation,  emphatic  in  disapproval,  easily 
credulous,  eagerly  enthusiastic,  boyishly  heroic,  and 
somewhat  carelessly  unthinking.  Now,  it  has  been 
found  in  practice  that  the  only  thing  that  will 
keenly  interest  a  crowd  is  a  struggle  of  some  sort 
or  other.  Speaking  empirically^,  the  late  Ferdi- 
nand Brunetiere,  in  1893,  stated  that  the  drama 
has  dealt  always  with  a  struggle  between  human 
wills;  and  his  statement,  formulated  in  the  catch- 
phrase,  "  No  struggle,  no  drama,"  has  since  be- 
come a  commonplace  of  dramatic  criticism.  But, 
so  far  as  I  know,  no  one  has  yet  realised  the  main 
reason  for  this,  which  is,  simply,  that  characters 
are  interesting  to  a  crowd  only  in  those  crises  of 
emotion  that  bring  them  to  the  grapple.  A  single 
individual,  like  the  reader  of  an  essay  or  a  novel, 
may  be  interested  intellectually  in  those  gentle  in- 
fluences beneath  which  a  character  unfolds  itself 
as  mildly  us  a  water-lily ;  but  to  what  Thackeray 
called  "  that  savage  child,  the  crowd,"  a  character 
does  not  appeal  except  in  moments  of  contention. 
There  never  yet  has  been  a  time  when  Hh-  theatre 
could  compete  successfully  against  the  amphithea- 
tre. Plautus  and  Terence  complained  that  the  Ro- 
man public  preferred  a  gladiatorial  combat  to  their 
plays;  a  bear-baiting  or  a  cock-fight  used  to  empty 


36      THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Shakespeare's  theatre  on  the  Bankside ;  and  there 
is  not  a  matinee  in  town  to-day  that  can  hold  its 
own  against  a  foot-ball  game.  Forty  thousand 
people  gather  annually  from  all  quarters  of  the 
East  to  see  Yale  and  Harvard  meet  upon  the  field, 
while  such  a  crowd  could  not  be  aggregated  from 
New  York  alone  to  see  the  greatest  play  the  world 
has  yet  produced.  For  the  crowd  demands  a  fight ; 
and  where  the  actual  exists,  it  will  scarcely  be  con- 
tented with  the  semblance. 

Hence  the  drama,  to  interest  at  all,  must  cater  to 
this  longing  for  contention,  which  is  one  of  the 
primordial  instincts  of  the  crowd.  It  must  present 
its  characters  in  some  struggle  of  the  wills,  v/hether 
it  be  flippant,  as  in  the  case  of  Benedick  and  Bea- 
trice ;  or  delicate,  as  in  that  of  Viola  and  Orsino ; 
or  terrible,  with  Macbeth;  or  piteous,  with  Lear. 
The  crowd  is  more  partisan  than  the  individual; 
and  therefore,  in  following  this  struggle  of  the 
drama,  it  desires  always  to  take  sides.  There  is 
no  fun  in  seeing  a  foot-ball  game  unless  you  care 
about  who  wins;  and  there  is  very  little  fun  in 
seeing  a  play  unless  the  dramatist  allows  you  to 
throw  your  sympathies  on  one  side  or  the  other 
of  the  struggle.  Hence,  although  in  actual  life  ) 
both  parties  to  a  conflict  are  often  partly  right 
and  partly  wrong,  and  it  is  hard  to  choose  between 
them,  the  dramatist  usually  simplifies  the  struggle 
in   his   plays   by   throwing   the   balance    of   right 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       37 

strongly  on  one  side.  Hence,  from  the  ethical 
standpoint,  the  simplicity  of  theatre  characters. 
Desdemona  is  all  innocence,  lago  all  deviltry. 
Hence  also  the  conventional  heroes  and  villains  of 
melodrama, —  these  to  be  hissed  and  those  to  be 
applauded.  Since  the  crowd  is  comparatively  lack- 
ing in  the  judicial  faculty  and  cannot  look  upon 
a  play  from  a  detached  and  disinterested  point  of 
view,  it  is  either  all  for  or  all  against  a  character; 
and  in  either  case  its  judgment  is  frequently  in 
defiance  of  the  rules  of  reason.  It  will  hear  no 
word  against  Camille,  though  an  individual  would 
judge  her  to  be  wrong,  and  it  has  no  sympathy 
with  Pere  Duval.  It  idolizes  Raffles,  who  is  a  liar 
and  a  thief;  it  shuts  its  ears  to  Marion  Allardyce, 
the  defender  of  virtue  in  Letty.  It  wants  its  sym- 
pathetic characters,  to  love;  its  antipathetic  char- 
acters, to  hate ;  and  it  hates  and  loves  them  as  un- 
reasonably as  a  savage  or  a  child.  The  trouble 
with  Hedda  Gabler  as  a  play  is  that  it  contains  not 
a  single  personage  that  the  audience  can  love. 
The  crowd  demands  those  so-called  "  sympathetic  " 
parts  that  every  actor,  for  this  reason,  longs  to 
represent.  And  since  the  crowd  is  partisan,  it 
wants  its  favored  characters  to  win.  Plence  the 
convention  of  the  "  happy  ending,"  insisted  on  by 
managers  who  feel  the  pulse  of  the  public.  The 
blind  Louise,  in  The  Two  Orphanx,  will  get  her 
sight  back,   never  fear.      Even   the  wicked  Oliver, 


38   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

in  As  You  Like  It,  must  turn  over  a  new  leaf  and 
marry  a  pretty  girl. 

Next  to  this  prime  instinct  of  partisanship  in 
/  watching  a  contention,  one  of  the  most  important 
1/  traits  in  the  psychology  of  crowds  is  their  extreme 
credulity.  A  crowd  will  nearly  always  believe 
anything  that  it  sees  and  almost  anything  that  it  is 
told.  An  audience  composed  entirely  of  individ- 
uals who  have  no  belief  in  ghosts  will  yet  accept 
the  Ghost  in  Hamlet  as  a  fact.  Bless  you,  they 
have  seen  him !  The  crowd  accepts  the  disguise 
of  Rosalind,  and  never  wonders  why  Orlando  does 
not  recognise  his  love.  To  this  extreme  credulity 
of  the  crowd  is  due  the  long  line  of  plays  that  are 
founded  on  mistaken  identity, —  farces  like  The 
Comedy  of  Errors  and  melodramas  like  The  Lyons 
Mail,  for  example.  The  crowd,  too,  will  accept 
without  demur  any  condition  precedent  to  the  story 
of  a  play,  however  impossible  it  might  seem  to  the 
mind  of  the  individual.  QEdipus  King  has  been 
married  to  his  mother  many  years  before  the  play 
begins ;  but  the  Greek  crowd  forbore  to  ask  why, 
in  so  long  a  period,  the  enormity  had  never  been 
discovered.  The  central  situation  of  She  Stoops 
to  Conquer  seems  impossible  to  the  individual  mind, 
but  is  eagerly  accepted  by  the  crowd.  Individual 
critics  find  fault  with  Thomas  Heywood's  lovely 
old  play,  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  on  the 
ground  that   though   Frankford's  noble   forgive- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       39 

ness  of  his  erring  wife  is  beautiful  to  contemplate, 
Mrs.  Frankford's  infidelity  is  not  sufficiently  mo- 
tivated, and  the  whole  story,  therefore,  is  untrue. 
But  Heywood,  writing  for  the  crowd,  said  frankly, 
"  If  you  will  grant  that  Mrs.  Frankford  was  un- 
faithful, I  can  tell  you  a  lovely  story  about  her 
husband,  who  was  a  gentleman  worth  knowing: 
otherwise  there  can't  be  any  story " ;  and  the 
Elizabethan  crowd,  eager  for  the  story,  was  Avilling 
to  oblige  the  dramatist  with  the  necessary  credulity. 

There  is  this  to  be  said  about  the  credulity  of  an 
audience,  however, —  that  it  will  believe  what  it 
sees  much  more  readily  than  what  it  hears.  It 
might  not  believe  in  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father 
if  the  ghost  were  merely  spoken  of  and  did  not 
walk  upon  the  stage.  If  a  dramatist  would  con- 
vince his  audience  of  the  generosity  or  the  treach- 
ery of  one  character  or  another,  he  should  not 
waste  words  either  praising  or  blaming  the  charac- 
ter, but  should  present  him  to  the  eye  in  the  per- 
formance of  a  generous  or  treacherous  action. 
The  audience  hears  wise  words  from  Polonius  when 
he  gives  his  parting  admonition  to  his  son ;  but  the 
same  audience  sees  him  made  a  fool  of  by  Prince 
Hamlet,  and  will  not  think  him  wise. 

The  fact  that  a  crowd's  eyes  arc  more  keenly 
receptive  than  its  ears  is  the  psychologic  basis  for 
the  maxim  that  in  the  theatre  action  speaks  louder 
than  words.     It  also  affords  a  reason  why  plays 


40   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

of  which  the  audience  does  not  understand  a  single 
word  are  frequently  successful.  Mme.  Sarah 
Bernhardt's  thrilling  performance  of  La  Tosca 
has  always  aroused  enthusiasm  in  London  and  New 
York,  where  the  crowd,  as  a  crowd,  could  not  un- 
derstand the  language  of  the  play. 

Another  primal  characteristic  of  the  mind  of  the 
ly'  crowd  is  its  susceptibility  to  emotional  contagion. 
A  cultivated  individual  reading  The  School  for 
Scandal  at  home  alone  will  be  intelligently  appre- 
ciative of  its  delicious  humor;  but  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine  him  laughing  over  it  aloud.  Yet  the  same 
individual,  when  submerged  in  a  theatre  crowd, 
will  laugh  heartily  over  this  very  play,  largely  be- 
cause other  people  near  him  are  laughing  too. 
1  Laughter,  tears,  enthusiasm,  all  the  basic  human 
emotions,  thrill  and  tremble  through  an  audience, 
because  each  member  of  the  crowd  feels  that  he  is 
surrounded  by  other  people  who  are  experiencing 
the  same  emotion  as  his  own.  In  the  sad  part  of 
a  play  it  is  hard  to  keep  from  weeping  if  the 
/  woman  next  to  you  is  wiping  her  eyes ;  and  still 
harder  is  it  to  keep  from  laughing,  even  at  a 
sorry  jest,  if  the  man  on  the  other  side  is  roaring 
in  vociferous  cachinnation.  Successful  dramatists 
play  upon  the  susceptibility  of  a  crowd  by  serving 
up  raw  morsels  of  crude  humor  and  pathos  for 
the  unthinking  to  wheeze  and  blubber  over,  know- 
ing that  these  members  of  the  audience  will  excite 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       41 

their  more  phlegmatic  neighbors  by  contagion. 
The  practical  dictum  that  every  laugh  in  the  first 
act  is  worth  money  in  the  box-office  is  founded  on 
this  psychologic  truth.  Even  puns  as  bad  as  Mr. 
Zangwill's  are  of  value  early  in  a  play  to  set  on 
some  quantity  of  barren  spectators  and  get  the 
house  accustomed  to  a  titter.  Scenes  like  the  foot- 
ball episodes  in  The  College  Widow  and  Strong- 
heart,  or  the  battle  in  The  Round  Up,  are  nearly 
always  sure  to  raise  the  roof ;  for  it  is  usually  suffi- 
cient to  set  everybody  on  the  stage  a-cheering  in 
order  to  make  the  audience  cheer  too  by  sheer  con- 
tagion. Another  and  more  classical  example  was 
the  speechless  triumph  of  Henry  V's  return  vic- 
torious, in  Richard  Mansfield's  sumptuous  produc- 
tion of  the  play.  Here  the  audience  felt  that  he 
was  every  inch  a  king;  for  it  had  caught  the  fer- 
vor of  the  crowd  upon  the  stage. 

This  same  emotional  contagion  is,  of  course, 
the  psychologic  basis  for  the  French  system  of  the 
claque,  or  band  of  hired  applauders  seated  in  the 
centre  of  the  house.  The  leader  of  the  claque 
knows  his  cues  as  if  he  were  an  actor  in  the  piece, 
and  at  the  psychologic  moment  the  claqueurs  burst 
forth  with  their  clatter  and  start  the  house  ap- 
plauding. Applause  begets  applause  in  the  thea- 
tre, as  laughter  begets  laughter  and  tears  beget 
tears. 

But  not  only  is  the  crowd  more  emotional  than 


42   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

the  individual ;  it  is  also  more  sensuous.  It  has  the 
lust  of  the  eye  and  of  the  ear, —  the  savage's  love 
of  gaudy  color,  the  child's  love  of  soothing  sound. 
It  is  fond  of  flaring  flags  and  blaring  trumpets. 
Hence  the  rich-costumed  processions  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan stage,  many  years  before  the  use  of  scenery  ; 
and  hence,  in  our  own  day,  the  success  of  pieces 
like  The  Darling  of  the  Gods  and  The  Rose  of 
the  Rancho.  Color,  light,  and  music,  artistically 
blended,  will  hold  the  crowd  better  than  the  most 
absorbing  story.  This  is  the  reason  for  the  vogue 
of  musical  comedy,  with  its  pretty  girls,  and  gaudy 
sliifts  of  scenery  and  lights,  and  tricksy,  tripping 
melodies  and  dances. 

Both  in  its  sentiments  and  in  its  opinions,  the 
crowd  is  comfortably  commonplace.  It  is,  as  a 
crowd,  incapable  of  original  thought  and  of  any 
but  inherited  emotion.  It  has  no  speculation  in 
its  eyes.  What  it  feels  was  felt  before  the  flood ; 
and  what  it  thinks,  its  fathers  thought  before  it. 
The  most  effective  moments  in  the  theatre  are  those 
that  appeal  to  basic  and  commonplace  emotions, 
—  love  of  woman,  love  of  home,  love  of  country, 
love  of  right,  anger,  jealousy,  revenge,  ambition, 
lust,  and  treachery.  So  great  for  centuries  has 
been  the  inherited  influence  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion that  any  adequate  play  whose  motive  is 
self-sacrifice  is  almost  certain  to  succeed.  Even 
when   the  self-sacrifice   is   unwise   and   ignoble,   as 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       43 

in  the  first  act  of  Frou-Frou,  the  crowd  will  give 
it  vehement  approval.  Countless  plays  have  been 
made  upon  the  man  who  unselfisnly  assumes  respon- 
sibility for  another's  guilt.  The  great  tragedies 
have  famihar  themes, —  ambition  in  Macbeth,  jeal- 
ousy in  Othello,  fihal  ingratitude  in  Lear;  there 
is  nothing  in  these  motives  that  the  most  unthink- 
ing audience  could  fail  to  understand.  No  crowd 
can  resist  the  fervor  of  a  patriot  who  goes  down 
scornful  before  many  spears.  Show  the  audience 
a  flag  to  die  for,  or  a  stalking  ghost  to  be 
avenged,  or  a  shred  of  honor  to  maintain  against 
agonizing  odds,  and  it  will  thrill  with  an  enthusi- 
asm as  ancient  as  the  human  race.  Few  are  the 
plays  that  can  succeed  without  the  moving  force 
of  love,  the  most  familiar  of  all  emotions.  These 
themes  do  not  require  that  the  audience  shall  think. 
But  for  the  speculative,  the  original,  the  new, 
the  crowd  evinces  little  favor.  If  the  dramatist 
holds  ideas  of  religion,  or  of  politics,  or  of  social 
law,  that  are  in  advance  of  his  time,  he  must  keep 
them  to  himself  or  else  his  plays  will  fail.  Nimble 
wits,  like  Mr.  Shaw,  who  scorn  tradition,  can  at- 
tain a  popular  success  only  through  the  crowd's 
inherent  love  of  fads;  they  cannot  long  succeed 
when  they  run  counter  to  inherited  ideas.  The 
great  successful  dramatists,  like  Moliere  and 
Shakespeare,  have  always  tliouglit  with  the  crowd 
on  all  essential  questions.     Tlieir  views  of  religion, 


44   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

of  morality,  of  politics,  of  law,  have  been  the  views 
of  the  populace,  nothing  more.  They  never  raise 
questions  that  cannot  quickly  be  answered  by  the 
crowd,  through  the  instinct  of  inherited  experience. 
No  mind  was  ever,  in  the  philosophic  sense,  more 
commonplace  than  that  of  Shakespeare.  He  had 
no  new  ideas.  He  was  never  radical,  and  seldom 
even  progressive.  He  was  a  careful  money-mak- 
ing business  man,  fond  of  food  and  drink  and 
out-of-doors  and  laughter,  a  patriot,  a  lover,  and 
a  gentleman.  Greatly  did  he  know  things  about 
people;  greatly,  also,  could  he  write.  But  he  ac- 
cepted the  religion,  the  politics,  and  the  social 
ethics  of  his  time,  without  ever  bothering  to  won- 
der if  these  things  might  be  improved. 

The  great  speculative  spirits  of  the  world,  those 
who  overturn  tradition  and  discover  new  ideas,  have 
had  minds  far  different  from  this.  They  have  not 
written  plays.  It  is  to  these  men, —  the  philoso- 
pher, the  essayist,  the  novelist,  the  lyric  poet, —  that 
each  of  us  turns  for  what  is  new  in  thought.  But 
from  the  dramatist  the  crowd  desires  only  the  old, 
old  thought.  It  has  no  patience  for  consideration  ; 
it  will  listen  only  to  what  it  knows  already.  If, 
therefore,  a  great  man  has  a  new  doctrine  to  ex- 
pound, let  him  set  it  forth  in  a  book  of  essays ;  or, 
if  he  needs  must  sugar-coat  it  with  a  story,  let 
him  expound  it  in  a  novel,  whose  appeal  will  be  to 
the  individual  mind.     Not  until  a  doctrine  is  old 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       45 

enough  to   have  become   generally   accepted  is  it 
ripe  for  exploitation  in  the  theatre. 

This  point  is  admirably  illustrated  by  two  of 
the  best  and  most  successful  plays  of  recent  seasons. 
The  Witching  Hour,  by  Mr.  Augustus  Thomas, 
and  The  Servant  in  the  House,  by  Mr,  Charles 
Rann  Kenned^',  were  both  praised  by  many  critics 
for  their  "  novelty  " ;  but  to  me  one  of  the  most 
significant  and  instructive  facts  about  them  is  that 
neither  of  them  was,  in  any  real  respect,  novel  in 
the  least.  Consider  for  a  moment  the  deliberate 
and  careful  lack  of  novelty  in  the  ideas  which  Mr. 
Thomas  so  skilfully  set  forth.  What  Mr.  Thomas 
really  did  was  to  gather  and  arrange  as  many  as 
possible  of  the  popularly  current  thoughts  con- 
cerning telepathy  and  cognate  subjects,  and  to  tell 
the  public  what  they  themselves  had  been  wonder- 
ing about  and  thinking  during  the  last  few  years. 
The  timeliness  of  the  play  lay  in  the  fact  that  it 
was  produced  late  enough  in  the  history  of  its 
subject  to  be  selectively  resumptive,  and  not  nearly 
so  much  in  the  fact  that  it  was  produced  early 
enough  to  forestall  other  dramatic  presentations  of 
the  same  materials.  Mr.  Tiiomas  has  himself  ex- 
plained, in  certain  semi-public  conversations,  that 
he  postponed  tiic  composition  of  tliis  play  —  on 
which  his  mind  h.id  been  set  for  many  years  — 
until  the  general  public  had  become  sufficiently  ac- 
customed  to   the   ideas   which   he   intended    to   set 


46   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

forth.  Ten  years  before,  this  play  would  have 
been  novel,  and  would  undoubtedl}'  have  failed. 
When  it  was  produced,  it  was  not  novel,  but  re- 
sumptive, in  its  thought ;  and  therefore  it  suc- 
ceeded. For  one  of  the  surest  ways  of  succeeding 
in  the  theatre  is  to  sum  up  and  present  dramatically 
all  that  the  crowd  has  been  thinking  for  some  time 
concerning  any  subject  of  importance.  The  dram- 
atist should  be  the  catholic  collector  and  wise  in- 
terpreter of  those  ideas  which  the  crowd,  in  its 
conservatism,  feels  already  to  be  safely  true. 

And  if  The  Servant  in  the  House  will  —  as  I 
believe  —  outlive  The  Witching  Hour,  it  will  be 
mainly  because,  in  the  author's  theme  and  his 
ideas,  it  is  older  by  many,  many  centuries.  The 
theme  of  Mr.  Thomas's  play  —  namely,  that 
thought  is  in  itself  a  dynamic  force  and  has  the 
virtue  and  to  some  extent  the  power  of  action  — 
is,  as  I  have  just  explained,  not  novel,  but  is  at 
least  recent  in  the  history  of  thinking.  It  is  a 
theme  which  dates  itself  as  belonging  to  the  pres- 
ent generation,  and  is  likely  to  lose  interest  for 
the  next.  But  Mr.  Kennedy's  theme  —  namely, 
that  when  discordant  human  beings  ascend  to  meet 
each  other  in  the  spirit  of  brotherly  love,  it  may 
truly  be  said  that  God  is  resident  among  them  — 
is  at  least  as  old  as  the  gentle-hearted  Galilean, 
and,  being  dateless,  belongs  to  future  generations 
as  well  as  to  the  present.     Mr.  Thomas  has  been 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       47 

skilfully  resumptive  of  a  passing  period  of  popular 
thought ;  but  Mr.  Kenned}'  has  been  resumptive  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  has  built  his  play  upon  the  wisdom 
of  the  centuries.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the 
very  reason  why  The  Servant  in  the  House  struck 
so  many  critics  as  being  strange  and  new  is  that, 
in  its  thesis  and  its  thought,  it  is  as  old  as  the 
world. 

The  truth  of  this  point  seems  to  me  indisputable. 
I  know  that  the  best  European  playwrights  of  the 
present  day  are  striving  to  use  the  drama  as  a  ve- 
hicle for  the  expression  of  advanced  ideas,  espe- 
cially in  regard  to  social  ethics ;  but  in  doing  this, 
I  think,  they  are  mistaking  the  scope  of  the  theatre. 
They  are  striving  to  say  in  the  drama  what  might 
be  said  better  in  the  essay  or  the  novel.  As  the 
exposition  of  a  theory,  Mr.  Shaw's  Man  and  Super- 
man is  not  nearly  so  effective  as  the  writings  of 
Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche,  from  whom  the  play- 
wright borrowed  his  ideas.  The  greatest  works  of 
Ibsen  can  be  appreciated  only  by  the  cultured  in- 
dividual and  not  by  the  uncultured  crowd.  That 
is  why  the  breadth  of  his  ap})eal  will  never  equal 
that  of  Shakespeare,  in  spite  of  his  unfathomable 
intellect  and  his  perfect  mastery  of  the  technique  of 
his  art.  Only  his  more  commonplace  plays  —  A 
DolVs  House,  for  example  —  have  attained  a  wide 
success.  And  a  wide  success  is  a  thing  to  be  de- 
sired for  other  than  matcri.-il  reasons.      Surely  it  is 


48   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

a  good  thing  for  the  public  that  Hamlet  never 
fails. 

The  conservatism  of  the  greatest  dramatists 
asserts  itself  not  only  in  their  thoughts  but  even 
in  the  mere  form  of  their  plays.  It  is  the  lesser 
men  who  invent  new  tricks  of  technique  and  startle 
the  public  with  innovations.  Moliere  merely  per- 
,  fected  the  type  of  Italian  comedy  that  his  public 
^  long  had  known.  Shakespeare  quietly  adopted  the 
forms  that  lesser  men  had  made  the  crowd  familiar 
with.  He  imitated  Lyly  in  Lovers  Labour^s  Lost, 
Greene  in  As  You  Like  It,  Marlowe  in  Richard 
III,  Kyd  in  Hamlet,  and  Fletcher  in  The  Tempest. 
He  did  the  old  thing  better  than  the  other  men 
had  done  it, —  that  is  all. 

Yet  this  is  greatly  to  Shakespeare's  credit.  He 
was  wise  enough  to  feel  that  what  the  crowd  wanted, 
both  in  matter  and  in  form,  was  what  was  needed 
in  the  greatest  drama.  In  saying  that  Shake- 
speare's mind  was  commonplace,  I  meant  to  tender 
him  the  highest  praise.  In  his  commonplaceness 
lies  his  sanity.  He  is  so  greatly  usual  that  he  can 
understand  all  men  and  sympathise  with  them.  He 
is  above  novelty.  His  wisdom  is  greater  than  the 
wisdom  of  the  few;  he  is  the  heir  of  all  the  ages, 
and  draws  his  wisdom  from  the  general  mind  of 
man.  And  it  is  largely  because  of  this  that  he 
represents  ever  the  ideal  of  the  dramatist.     He  who 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       49 

would  write  for  the  theatre  must  not  despise  the 
crowd. 

in 

All  of  the  above-mentioned  characteristics  of  thea- 
tre audiences,  their  instinct  for  contention  and  for 
partisanship,   their   credulity,   their   sensuousness,  j 
their   susceptibility   to   emotional   contagion,   their  I 
incapacity  for  original  thought,  their  conservatism,! 
and  their  love  of  the  commonplace,  appear  in  ev-|f 
ery  sort  of  crowd,  as  M.  Le  Bon  has  proved  witq 
ample  illustration.     It  remains  for  us  to  notice  cer- 
tain traits  in  which  theatre  audiences  differ  from 
other  kinds  of  crowds. 

In  the  first  place,  a  theatre  audience  is  com- 
posed of  individuals  more  heterogeneous  than  those 
that  make  up  a  political,  or  social,  or  sporting,  or 
religious  convocation.  The  crowd  at  a  foot-ball 
game,  at  a  church,  at  a  social  or  political  conven- 
tion, is  by  its  very  purpose  selective  of  its  elements: 
it  is  made  up  entirely  of  college-folk,  or  Presbyte- 
rians, or  Prohibitionists,  or  Republicans,  as  the 
case  may  be.  But  a  tlicatre  audience  is  composed 
of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  The  same 
theatre  in  New  York  contains  the  rich  and  tlic 
poor,  the  literate  and  the  illiterate,  the  old  and  the 
young,  the  native  and  the  naturalised.  The  same 
play,  therefore,  must  appeal  to  all  of  these.  It 
follows  that  the  dramatist  must  be  broader  in  his 


50   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

appeal  than  any  other  artist.  He  cannot  confine 
his  message  to  any  single  caste  of  society.  In  the 
same  single  work  of  art  he  must  incorporate  ele- 
ments that  will  interest  all  classes  of  humankind. 

Those  promising  dramatic  movements  that  have 
confined  their  appeal  to  a  certain  single  stratum  of 
society  have  failed  ever,  because  of  this,  to  achieve 
the  highest  excellence.  The  trouble  with  Roman 
comedy  is  that  it  was  written  for  an  audience  com- 
posed chiefly  of  freedmen  and  slaves.  The  patri- 
cian caste  of  Rome  walked  wide  of  the  theatres. 
Only  the  dregs  of  society  gathered  to  applaud  the 
comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence.  Hence  the  over- 
simplicity  of  their  prologues,  and  their  tedious  rep- 
etition of  the  obvious.  Hence,  also,  their  vul- 
garity, their  horse-play,  their  obscenity.  Here  was 
fine  dramatic  genius  led  astray,  because  the  time 
was  out  of  joint.  Similarly,  the  trouble  with 
French  tragedy,  in  the  classicist  period  of  Corneille 
and  Racine,  is  that  it  was  written  only  for  the 
finest  caste  of  society, —  the  patrician  coterie  of  a 
patrician  cardinal.  Hence  its  over-niceness,  and 
its  appeal  to  the  ear  rather  than  to  the  e3^e.  Ter- 
ence aimed  too  low  and  Racine  aimed  too  high. 
Each  of  them,  therefore,  shot  wide  of  the  mark ; 
while  Moliere,  who  wrote  at  once  for  patrician  and 
plebeian,  scored  a  hit. 

The   really    great   dramatic   movements    of   the 
world  —  that  of  Spain  in  the  age  of  Calderon  and 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       51 

Lope,  that  of  England  in  the  spacious  times  of 
great  EHzabeth,  that  of  France  from  1830  to  the 
present  hour  —  have  broadened  their  appeal  to  ev- 
ery class.     The  queen  and  the  orange-girl  joyed 
together  in  the  healthiness  of  Rosalind ;  the  king 
and  the  gamin  laughed  together  at  the  rogueries 
of  Scapin.      The  breadth  of  Shakespeare's  appeal 
remains  one  of  the  most  significant   facts  in  the 
history  of  the  drama.     Tell  a  filthy-faced  urchin 
of  the  gutter  that  you  know  about  a  play  that 
shows  a  ghost  that  stalks  and  talks  at  midniglit 
underneath  a  castle-tower,  and  a  man  that  makes 
believe  he  is  out  of  his  head  so  that  he  can  get  the 
better  of  a  wicked  king,  and  a  girl  that  goes  mad 
and  drowns  herself,  and  a  play  within  the  play, 
and  a  funeral  in  a  churchyard,  and  a  duel  with 
poisoned  swords,  and  a  great  scene  at  the  end  in 
which  nearly  every  one  gets  killed :  tell  him  this, 
and  watch  liis  eyes  grow  wide!     I  have  been  to  a 
tliirty-cent   performance   of   Othello    in    a    middle- 
western  town,  and  have  felt  the  audience  thrill  with 
the  headlong  hurry  of  the  action.     Vet  these  are 
the  plays  that  cloistered  students  study  for  their 
wisdom  and  their  style ! 

And  let  us  not  forget,  in  this  connection,  that  a 
similar  breadth  of  appeal  is  neither  necessary  nor 
greatly  to  be  desired  in  those  forms  of  literature 
that,  unlike  the  drama,  are  nc  t  written  for  tlie 
crowd.     The  greatest   non-dramatic  poet  and  the 


52   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

greatest  novelist  in  English  are  appreciated  only 
by  the  few;  but  this  is  not  in  the  least  to  the  dis- 
credit of  Milton  and  of  Meredith.  One  indication 
of  the  greatness  of  Mr,  Kipling's  story,  They,  is 
that  very  few  have  learned  to  read  it. 

Victor  Hugo,  in  his  preface  to  Ruy  Bias,  has 
discussed  this  entire  principle  from  a  slightly  dif- 
ferent point  of  view.  He  divides  the  theatre  au- 
dience into  three  classes  —  the  thinkers,  who 
demand  characterisation ;  the  women,  who  demand 
passion ;  and  the  mob,  who  demand  action  —  and 
insists  that  every  great  play  must  appeal  to  all 
three  classes  at  once.  Certainly  Ruy  Bias  itself 
fulfils  this  desideratum,  and  is  great  in  the  breadth 
of  its  appeal.  Yet  although  all  three  of  the  neces- 
sary elements  appear  in  the  pla}',  it  has  more  action 
than  passion  and  more  passion  than  characterisa- 
tion. And  this  fact  leads  us  to  the  theory,  omitted 
by  Victor  Hugo  from  his  preface,  that  the  mob  is 
more  important  than  the  women  and  the  women 
more  important  than  the  thinkers,  in  the  average 
theatre  audience.  Indeed,  a  deeper  consideration 
of  the  subject  almost  leads  us  to  discard  the  think- 
ers as  a  psychologic  force  and  to  obliterate  the 
distinction  between  the  women  and  the  mob.  It  is 
to  an  unthinking  and  feminine-minded  mob  that 
the  dramatist  must  first  of  all  appeal;  and  this 
leads  us  to  believe  that  action  with  passion  for  its 
motive  is  the  prime  essential  for  a  play. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       53 

For,  nowadays  at  least,  it  is  most  essential  that 
the  drama  should  appeal  to  a  crowd  of  women. 
Practically  speaking,  our  matinee  audiences  are 
composed  entirely  of  women,  and  our  evening  au- 
diences are  composed  chiefly  of  women  and  the  men 
that  they  have  brought  with  them.  Very  few  men 
go  to  the  theatre  unattached;  and  these  few  are 
not  important  enough,  from  the  theoretic  stand- 
point, to  alter  the  psychologic  aspect  of  the  audi- 
ence. And  it  is  this  that  constitutes  one  of  the 
most  important  differences  between  a  modem  thea- 
tre audience  and  other  kinds  of  crowds. 

The  influence  of  this  fact  upon  the  dramatist  is 
very  potent.  First  of  all,  as  I  have  said,  it  forces 
him  to  deal  chiefly  in  action  with  passion  for  its 
motive.  And  this  necessity  accounts  for  the  pre- 
ponderance of  female  characters  over  male  in  the 
large  majority  of  the  greatest  modern  plays.  No- 
tice Nora  Helmer,  Mrs.  Alving,  Hedda  Gabler;  no- 
tice Magda  and  Camille;  notice  Mrs.  Tanqueray, 
Mrs.  Ebbsmith,  Iris,  and  Ix'tty, —  to  cite  only  a 
few  examples.  Furthermore,  since  women  are  by 
nature  comparatively  inattentive,  the  femininity  of 
tlie  modern  theatre  audience  forces  the  dramatist  to 
employ  the  elementary  teclniical  tricks  of  repeti- 
tion and  parallelism,  in  order  to  keep  his  play 
clear,  though  much  of  it  be  unattended  to.  Eu- 
gene Scribe,  who  knew  the  theatre,  used  to  say  that 
every  important  statement  in  the  exposition  of  a 


54   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

play  must  be  made  at  least  three  times.  This,  of 
course,  is  seldom  necessary  in  a  novel,  where  things 
may  be  said  once  for  all. 

The  prevailing  inattentiveness  of  a  theatre  audi- 
ence at  the  present  day  is  due  also  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  peculiarly  conscious  of  itself,  apart  from  the 
play  that  it  has  come  to  see.  Many  people  "  go 
to  the  theatre,"  as  the  phrase  is,  without  caring 
much  whether  they  see  one  play  or  another;  what 
they  want  chiefly  is  to  immerse  themselves  in  a 
theatre  audience.  This  is  especially  true,  in  New 
York,  of  the  large  percentage  of  people  from  out 
of  town  who  "  go  to  the  theatre  "  merely  as  one 
phase  of  their  metropolitan  experience.  It  is  true, 
also,  of  the  many  women  in  the  boxes  and  the  or- 
chestra who  go  less  to  see  than  to  be  seen.  It  is 
one  of  the  great  difficulties  of  the  dramatist  that 
he  must  capture  and  enchain  the  attention  of  an 
audience  thus  composed.  A  man  does  not  pick  up 
a  novel  unless  he  cares  to  read  it;  but  many  peo- 
ple go  to  the  theatre  chiefly  for  the  sense  of  being 
there.  Certainly,  therefore,  the  problem  of  the 
dramatist  is,  in  this  respect,  more  difficult  than  that 
of  the  novelist,  for  he  must  make  his  audience  lose 
consciousness  of  itself  in  the  consciousness  of  his 
play. 

One  of  the  most  essential  diff'erences  between  a 
theatre  audience  and  other  kinds  of  crowds  lies  in 
the  purpose  for  which  it  is  convened.     This  pur- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES 


00 


pose  is  always  recreation.  A  theatre  audience  is 
therefore  less  serious  than  a  church  congregation 
or  a  political  or  social  convention.  It  does  not 
come  to  be  edified  or  educated;  it  has  no  desire  to 
be  taught :  what  it  wants  is  to  have  its  emotions 
played  upon.  It  seeks  amusement  —  in  the  widest 
sense  of  the  word  —  amusement  through  laugliter, 
s^-mpathy,  terror,  and  tears.  And  it  is  amusement 
of  this  sort  that  the  great  dramatists  have  ever 
given  it. 

The  trouble  with  most  of  the  dreamers  wlio 
league  themselves  for  the  uplifting  of  the  stage  is 
that  they  consider  the  theatre  with  an  illogical  so- 
lemnity. They  base  their  efforts  on  the  proposi- 
tion that  a  theatre  audience  ought  to  want  to  be 
edified.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  audience  ever  does. 
aVIoliere  and  Shakespeare,  who  knew  the  limits  of 
their  art,  never  said  a  word  about  uplifting  the 
stage.  They  wrote  plays  to  please  the  crowd ;  and 
if,  through  their  inherent  greatness,  they  became 
teachers  as  well  as  entertainers,  they  did  so  with- 
out any  tall  talk  about  the  solemnity  of  their 
mission.  Their  audiences  learned  largely,  but  they 
did  so  unawares, —  God  being  with  them  when  they 
knew  it  not.  The  demand  for  an  endowed  theatre 
in  America  comes  chiefly  from  those  who  believe 
that  a  great  play  cannot  earn  its  own  living.  Yet 
Hamlet  has  made  more  money  than  any  other  pTay 
in   English ;   The  School  for  Scandal  never   fails 


56      THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

to  draw ;  and  in  our  own  day  we  have  seen  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac  coining  money  all  around  the  world. 
There  were  not  any  endowed  theatres  in  Elizabethan 
London.  Give  the  crowd  the  sort  of  plays  it 
wants,  and  you  will  not  have  to  seek  beneficence  to 
keep  your  theatre  floating.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  no  endowed  theatre  will  ever  lure  the  crowd 
to  listen  to  the  sort  of  plays  it  does  not  want. 
There  is  a  wise  maxim  appended  to  one  of  Mr. 
George  Ade's  Fables  in  Slang:  "  In  uplifting,  get 
underneath."  If  the  theatre  in  America  is  weak, 
what  it  needs  is  not  endowment:  it  needs  great  and 
popular  plays.  Why  should  we  waste  our  money 
and  our  energy  trying  to  make  the  crowd  come  to 
see  The  Master  Builder,  or  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutch- 
eon, or  The  Hour  Glass,  or  Pelleas  and  Melisande? 
It  is  willing  enough  to  come  without  urging  to  see 
Othello  and  The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray.  Give  us 
one  great  dramatist  who  understands  the  crowd, 
and  we  shall  not  have  to  form  societies  to  propagate 
his  art.  Let  us  cease  our  prattle  of  the  theatre  for 
the  few.  Any  play  that  is  really  great  as  drama 
will  interest  the  many. 

rv 

One  point  remains  to  be  considered.  In  any 
theatre  audience  there  are  certain  individuals  who 
do  not  belong  to  the  crowd.  They  are  in  it,  but 
not  of  it;  for  they  fail  to  merge  their  individual 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AUDIENCES       57 

self-consciousness  in  the  general  self-consciousness 
of  the  multitude.  Such  are  the  professional  critics, 
and  other  confirmed  frequenters  of  the  theatre.  It 
is  not  for  them  primarily  that  plays  are  written ; 
and  any  one  who  has  grown  individualised  through 
the  theatre-going  habit  cannot  help  looking  back 
regretfully  upon  those  fresher  days  when  he  be- 
longed, unthinking,  to  the  crowd.  A  first-night 
audience  is  anomalous,  in  that  it  is  composed 
largely  of  individuals  opposed  to  self-surrender; 
and  for  this  reason,  a  first-night  judgment  of  the 
merits  of  a  play  is  rarely  final.  The  dramatist  has 
written  for  a  crowd,  and  he  is  judged  by  individ- 
uals. Most  dramatic  critics  will  tell  you  that  they 
long  to  lose  themselves  in  the  crowd,  and  regret  the 
aloofness  from  the  play  that  comes  of  their  pro- 
fession. It  is  because  of  this  aloofness  of  the 
critic  that   most   dramatic  criticism   fails. 

Throughout  the  present  discussion,  I  have  in- 
sisted on  the  point  that  the  great  dramatists  have 
always  written  primarily  for  the  many.  Yet  now 
I  must  add  that  when  once  they  have  fulfilled  this 
prime  necessity,  they  may  also  write  secondarily 
for  the  few.  And  the  very  greatest  have  always 
done  so.  In  so  far  as  he  was  a  dramatist,  Shake- 
speare wrote  for  the  crowd ;  in  so  far  as  he  was  a 
lyric  poet,  he  wrote  for  himself;  and  in  so  far  as 
he  was  a  sage  and  a  stylist,  he  wrote  for  the  in- 
dividual.     In    making   sure   of   his   appeal    to   the 


58   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

many,  he  earned  the  right  to  appeal  to  the  few. 
At  the  thirty-cent  performance  of  Othello  that  I 
spoke  of,  I  was  probably  the  only  person  present 
who  failed  to  submerge  his  individuality  beneath 
the  common  consciousness  of  the  audience.  Shake- 
speare made  a  play  that  could  appeal  to  the  rabble 
of  that  middle-western  town ;  but  he  wrote  it  in  a 
verse  that  none  of  them  could  hear :  — 

Not  poppy,  nor  mandragora, 
Nor  all  the  drowsy  syrups  of  the  world, 
Shall  ever  medicine  thee  to  that  sweet  sleep 
Which  thou  ow'dst  yesterday. 

The  greatest  dramatist  of  all,  in  writing  for  the 
crowd,  did  not  neglect  the  individual. 


Ill 

THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  DRAMATIST 

We  have  already  agreed  that  the  dramatist  works 
ever  under  the  sway  of  three  influences  which  are  not 
felt  by  exclusively  literary  artists  like  the  poet  and 
the  novelist.  The  physical  conditions  of  the  thea- 
tre in  any  age  affect  to  a  great  extent  the  form 
and  structure  of  the  drama;  the  conscious  or  un- 
conscious demands  of  the  audience,  as  we  have  ob- 
serv'ed  in  the  preceding  cliapter,  determine  for  the 
dramatist  the  themes  he  shall  portray;  and  the 
range  or  restrictions  of  his  actors  have  an  imme- 
diate effect  upon  the  dramatist's  great  task  of 
character-creation.  In  fact,  so  potent  is  the  in- 
fluence of  the  actor  upon  the  dramatist  that  the  lat- 
ter, in  creating  character,  goes  to  work  very  dif- 
ferently from  his  literary  fellow-artists, —  the 
novelist,  the  story-writer,  or  the  poet.  Great  char- 
acters in  non-dramatic  fiction  have  often  resulted 
from  abstract  imagining,  witliout  dirt'ct  reference 
to  any  actual  person :  Don  Quixote,  Tito  Melema, 
Leatherstocking,  sprang  full-grown  from  their 
creators'  minds  and  struck  the  world  as  strange 
and  new.     But  tlie  greatest  characters  in  the  drama 

59 


60   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Imve  almost  always  taken  on  the  physical,  and  to 
a  great  extent  the  mental,  characteristics  of  certain 
great  actors  for  whom  they  have  been  fashioned. 
Cyrano  is  not  merely  Cyrano,  but  also  Coquelin ; 
Mascarille  is  not  merely  Mascarille,  but  also  Mo- 
liere;  Hamlet  is  not  merely  Hamlet,  but  also  Rich- 
ard   Burbage.     Closet-students    of    the    plays    of 
Sophocles  may  miss  a  point  or  two  if  they  fail  to 
consider  that  the  dramatist  prepared  the  part  of 
CEdipus   in  three  successive  dramas  for  a  certain 
star-performer   on   the   stage   of   Dionysus.     The 
greatest  dramatists  have  built  their  plays  not  so 
much  for  reading  in  the  closet  as  for  immediate 
presentation    on   the   stage;   they   have   grown   to 
greatness  only  after  having  achieved  an  initial  suc- 
cess that  has  given  them  the  freedom  of  the  thea- 
tre ;  and  their  conceptions  of  character  have  there- 
fore crystallised  around  the  actors  that  they  have 
found  waiting  to  present  their  parts.     A  novelist 
may  conceive  his  heroine  freely  as  being  tall  or 
short,  frail  or  firmly  built;  but  if  a  dramatist  is 
making  a  play  for  an  actress  like  Maude  Adams, 
an  airy,  slight  physique  is  imposed  upon  his  hero- 
ine in  advance. 

Shakespeare  was,  among  other  things,  the  di- 
rector of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  men,  who  per- 
formed in  the  Globe,  upon  the  Bankside;  and  his 
plays  are  replete  with  evidences  of  the  influence 
upon  him  of  the  actors  whom  he  had  in  charge.     It 


THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       6l 

is  patent,  for  example,  that  the  same  comedian  must 
have  created  Launce  in  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona 
and  Launcelot  Gobbo  in  the  Merch-ant  of  Venice; 
the  low  comic  hit  of  one  production  was  bodily 
repeated  in  the  next.  It  is  almost  as  obvious  that 
the  parts  of  Mercutio  and  Gratiano  must  have 
been  intrusted  to  the  same  performer;  both  char- 
acters seem  made  to  fit  the  same  histrionic  tempera- 
ment. If  Hamlet  were  the  hero  of  a  novel,  we 
should  all,  I  think,  conceive  of  him  as  slender,  and 
the  author  would  agree  with  us ;  yet,  in  the  last 
scene  of  the  play,  the  Queen  expressly  says,  "  He's 
fat,  and  scant  of  breath."  This  line  has  puzzled 
many  commentators,  as  seeming  out  of  character; 
but  it  merely  indicates  that  Richard  Burbage  was 
fleshy  during  the  season  of  1602. 

The  Elizabethan  expedient  of  disguising  the 
heroine  as  a  boy,  which  was  invented  by  John 
Lyly,  made  popular  by  Robert  Greene,  and  eagerly 
adopted  by  Shakespeare  and  Fletcher,  seems  un- 
convincing on  the  modern  stage.  It  is  hard  for  us 
to  imagine  how  Orlando  can  fail  to  recognise  his 
love  when  he  meets  her  clad  as  Ganymede  in  the 
forest  of  Arden,  or  how  Bassanio  can  be  blinded  to 
the  figure  of  his  wife  when  she  enters  the  court- 
room in  the  almost  feminine  robes  of  a  doctor  of 
laws.  Clothes  cannot  make  a  man  out  of  an  ac- 
tress; we  recognize  Ada  Rchan  or  Julia  Marlowe 
beneath  the  trappings  and  the  suits  of  their  dis- 


62       THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

guises ;  and  it  might  seem  that  Shakespeare  was 
depending  over-much  upon  the  proverbial  credul- 
ity of  theatre  audiences.  But  a  glance  at  histri- 
onic conditions  in  Shakespeare's  day  will  show  us 
immediately  why  he  used  this  expedient  of  disguise 
not  only  for  Portia  and  Rosalind,  but  for  Viola 
and  Imogen  as  well.  Shakespeare  wrote  these 
parts  to  be  played  not  by  women  but  by  boys. 
Now,  when  a  boy  playing  a  woman  disguised  him- 
self as  a  woman  playing  a  boy,  the  disguise  must 
have  seemed  baffling,  not  only  to  Orlando  and  Bas- 
sanio  on  the  stage,  but  also  to  the  audience.  It 
was  Shakespeare's  boy  actors,  rather  than  his  nar- 
rative imagination,  that  made  him  recur  repeatedly 
in  this  case  to  a  dramatic  expedient  which  he  would 
certainly  discard  if  he  were  writing  for  actresses 
to-day. 

If  we  turn  from  the  work  of  Shakespeare  to  that 
of  Moliere,  we  shall  find  many  more  evidences  of 
the  influence  of  the  actor  on  the  dramatist.  In 
fact,  Moliere's  entire  scheme  of  character-creation 
cannot  be  understood  without  direct  reference  to 
the  histrionic  capabilities  of  the  various  members 
of  the  Troupe  de  Monsieur.  Moliere's  Immediate 
and  practical  concern  was  not  so  much  to  create 
comic  characters  for  all  time  as  to  make  effective 
parts  for  La  Grange  and  Du  Croisy  and  Mag- 
deleine  Bejart,  for  his  wife  and  for  himself.  La 
Grange  seems  to  have  been  the  Charles  Wyndham 


THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       63 

of  his  day, —  every  inch  a  gentleman ;  his  part  in 
any  of  the  plays  may  be  distinguished  by  its  ele- 
gant urbanity.  In  Les  Prec'wuses  Ridicules  the 
gentlemanly  characters  are  actually  named  La 
Grange  and  Du  Croisy;  the  actors  walked  on  and 
played  themselves ;  it  is  as  if  Augustus  Thomas 
had  called  the  hero  of  his  best  play,  not  Jack 
Brookfield,  but  John  Mason.  In  the  early  pe- 
riod of  Moliere's  art,  before  he  broadened  as  an 
actor,  the  parts  that  he  wrote  for  himself  were 
often  so  much  alike  from  play  to  play  that  he 
called  them  by  the  same  conventional  theatric 
name  of  Mascarille  or  Sganarelle,  and  played  them, 
doubtless,  with  the  same  costume  and  make-up. 
Later  on,  when  he  became  more  versatile  as  an 
actor,  he  wrote  for  himself  a  wider  range  of  parts 
and  individualised  them  in  name  as  well  as  in 
nature.  His  growth  in  depicting  the  characters  of 
young  women  is  curiously  coincident  with  the 
growth  of  his  wife  as  an  actress  for  whom  to  de- 
vise such  characters.  Moliere's  best  woman  — 
Celimene,  in  Le  Misanthrope  —  was  created  for 
Mile.  Moliere  at  the  height  of  her  career,  and  is  en- 
dowed with  all  her  physical  and  mental  traits. 

The  reason  why  so  many  of  the  Queen  Anne 
dramatists  in  England  wrote  comedies  setting  forth 
a  dandified  and  foppish  gentleman  is  that  Colley 
Gibber,  the  foremost  actor  of  the  time,  could  play 
the  fop  better  than  he  could  play  anything  else. 


64   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

The  reason  why  there  is  no  love  scene  between 
Charles  Surface  and  Maria  in  The  School  for 
Scandal  is  that  Sheridan  knew  that  the  actor  and 
the  actress  who  were  cast  for  these  respective  roles 
were  incapable  of  making  love  gracefully  upon 
the  stage.  The  reason  why  Victor  Hugo's  Crom- 
well overleaped  itself  in  composition  and  became 
impossible  for  purposes  of  stage  production  is  that 
Talma,  for  whom  the  character  of  Cromwell  was 
designed,  died  before  the  piece  was  finished,  and 
Hugo,  despairing  of  having  the  part  adequately 
acted,  completed  the  play  for  the  closet  instead  of 
for  the  stage.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  cull  from 
the  past  further  instances  of  the  direct  dependence 
of  the  dramatist  upon  his  actors.  We  have  only 
to  look  about  us  at  the  present  day  to  see  the  same 
influence  at  work. 

For  example,  the  career  of  one  of  the  very  best 
endowed  theatrical  composers  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  late  Victorien  Sardou,  has  been  molded 
and  restricted  for  all  time  by  the  talents  of  a  sin- 
gle star  performer,  Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt.  Un- 
der the  influence  of  Eugene  Scribe,  Sardou  began 
his  career  at  the  Theatre  Fran9ais  with  a  wide 
range  of  well-made  plays,  varying  in  scope  from 
the  social  satire  of  Nos  Intimes  and  the  farcical  in- 
trigue of  Les  Pattes  de  Mouche  (known  to  us  in 
English  as  The  Scrap  of  Paper)  to  the  tremendous 
historic  panorama  of  Patrie.     When  Sarah  Bern- 


THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       65 

hardt  left  the  Comedie  Fran9aise,  Sardou  followed 
in  her  footsteps,  and  afterwards  devoted  most  of 
his  energy  to  preparing  a  series  of  melodramas  to 
serv-e  successively  as  vehicles  for  her.  Now,  Sarah 
Bernhardt  is  an  actress  of  marked  abilities,  and 
limitations  likewise  marked.  In  sheer  perfection 
of  technique  she  surpasses  all  performers  of  her 
time.  She  is  the  acme  of  histrionic  dexterity ;  all 
that  she  does  upon  the  stage  is,  in  sheer  effective- 
ness, superb.  But  in  her  work  she  has  no  soul; 
she  lacks  the  sensitive  sweet  lure  of  Duse,  the  serene 
and  star-lit  poetry  of  Modjeska.  Three  things  she 
does  supremely  well.  She  can  be  seductive,  with  a 
cooing  voice ;  she  can  be  vindictive,  with  a  cawing 
voice;  and,  voiceless,  she  can  die.  Hence  the  for- 
mula of  Sardou's  melodramas. 

His  heroines  are  almost  always  Sarah  Bem- 
hardts, —  luring,  tremendous,  doomed  to  die. 
Fedora,  Gismonda,  La  Tosca,  Zoraya,  are  but  a 
single  woman  who  transmigrates  from  play  to 
play.  We  find  her  in  different  countries  and  in 
different  times ;  but  she  always  lures  and  fascinates 
a  man,  stonns  against  insuperable  circumstance, 
coos  and  caws,  and  in  the  outcome  dies.  One  of 
Sardou's  latest  efforts.  La  Sorciere,  presents  the 
dry  bones  of  the  fonnula  without  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  life.  Zoraya  appears  first  shimmering 
in  inoonh'ght  ujjon  the  hills  of  Spain, —  dovelike 
in  voice,  serpentining  in  seductiveness.      Next,  she 


66      THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

is  allowed  to  hypnotise  the  audience  while  she  is 
h^^pnotising  the  daughter  of  the  governor.  She 
is  loved  and  she  is  lost.  She  curses  the  high  tribu- 
nal of  the  Inquisition, —  a  dove  no  longer  now. 
And  she  dies  upon  cathedral  steps,  to  organ  music. 
The  Sorceress  is  but  a  lifeless  piece  of  mechanism ; 
and  when  it  was  performed  in  English  by  Mrs. 
Patrick  Campbell,  it  failed  to  lure  or  to  thrill. 
But  Sarah  Bernhardt,  because  as  an  actress  she  is 
Zoraya,  contrived  to  lift  it  into  life.  Justly  we 
may  say  that,  in  a  certain  sense,  this  is  Sarah 
Bernhardt's  drama  instead  of  Victorien  Sardou's. 
With  her,  it  is  a  play ;  without  her,  it  is  nothing 
but  a  formula.  The  young  author  of  Patrie 
promised  better  things  than  this.  Had  he  chosen, 
he  might  have  climbed  to  nobler  heights.  But  he 
chose  instead  to  write,  year  after  year,  a  vehicle 
for  the  Muse  of  Melodrama,  and  sold  his  laurel 
crown  for  gate-receipts. 

If  Sardou  suffered  through  playing  the  sedulous 
ape  to  a  histrionic  artist,  it  is  no  less  true  that 
the  same  practice  has  been  advantageous  to  M. 
Edmond  Rostand.  M.  Rostand  has  shrewdly  writ- 
ten for  the  greatest  comedian  of  the  recent  gen- 
eration ;  and  Constant  Coquelin  was  the  making  of 
him  as  a  dramatist.  The  poet's  early  pieces,  like 
Les  Romanesques,  disclosed  him  as  a  master  of 
preciosity,  exquisitely  lyrical,  but  lacking  in  the 
sterner  stuff  of  drama.     He  seemed  a  new  de  Ban- 


THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       67 

ville  —  dainty,  dallying,  and  deft  —  a  writer  of 
witty  and  prett}'  verses  —  nothing  more.  Then 
it  fell  to  his  lot  to  devise  an  acting  part  for  Coque- 
lin,  which  in  the  compass  of  a  single  play  should 
allow  that  great  performer  to  sweep  through  the 
whole  wide  range  of  his  varied  and  versatile  accom- 
plishment. With  the  figure  of  Coquelin  before  him, 
M.  Rostand  set  earnestly  to  work.  The  result  of 
his  endeavor  was  the  character  of  Cyrano  de  Ber- 
gerac,  which  is  considered  by  many  critics  the 
richest  acting  part,  save  Hamlet,  in  the  histor}'  of 
the  theatre. 

UAiglon  was  also  devised  under  the  immediate 
influence  of  the  same  actor.  The  genesis  of  this 
latter  play  is,  I  think,  of  peculiar  interest  to  stu- 
dents of  the  drama;  and  I  shall  therefore  relate 
it  at  some  length.  The  facts  were  told  by  M. 
Coquelin  himself  to  his  friend  Professor  Brander 
^Matthews,  who  has  kindly  permitted  me  to  state 
them  in  this  place.  One  evening,  after  the  ex- 
traordinary success  of  Cyrano,  M.  Rostand  met 
Coquelin  at  the  Porte  St.  Martin  and  said,  "  You 
know,  Coq,  this  is  not  the  last  part  I  want  to  write 
for  you.  Can't  you  give  me  an  idea  to  get  me 
started  —  an  idea  for  another  chai'acter?  "  The 
actor  thought  for  a  moment,  and  then  answered, 
"  I've  always  wanted  to  play  a  vwux  grognard  du 
'premier  empire  —  un  grenadier  a  grandes  mous- 
taches."    ...     A  gruinj)y  grenadier  of  Napo- 


68   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Icon's  army  —  a  grenadier  with  sweeping  mous- 
taches —  with  this  cue  the  dramatist  set  to  work 
and  gradually  imagined  the  character  of  Flambeau. 
He  soon  saw  that  if  the  great  Napoleon  were  to 
appear  in  the  play  he  would  dominate  the  action 
and  steal  the  centre  of  the  stage  from  the  soldier- 
hero.  He  therefore  decided  to  set  the  story  after 
the  Emperor's  death,  in  the  time  of  the  weak  and 
vacillating  Due  de  Reichstadt.  Flambeau,  who 
had  served  the  eagle,  could  now  transfer  his  alle- 
giance to  the  eaglet,  and  stand  dominant  with  the 
memory  of  battles  that  had  been.  But  after  the 
dramatist  had  been  at  work  upon  the  play  for  some 
time,  he  encountered  the  old  difficulty  in  a  new 
guise.  At  last  he  came  in  despair  to  Coquelin  and 
said,  "  It  isn't  your  play,  Coq ;  it  can't  be ;  the 
young  duke  is  running  away  with  it,  and  I  can't 
stop  him ;  Flambeau  is  but  a  secondary  figure  after 
all.  What  shall  I  do?"  And  Coquelin,  who  un- 
derstood him,  answered,  "  Take  it  to  Sarah ;  she  has 
just  played  Hamlet,  and  wants  to  do  another  boy." 
So  M.  Rostand  "  took  it  to  Sarah,"  and  finished 
up  the  duke  with  her  in  view,  while  in  the  back- 
ground the  figure  of  Flambeau  scowled  upon  him 
over  grandes  moustaches  —  a  true  grognard  in- 
deed! Thus  it  happened  that  Coquelin  never 
played  the  part  of  Flambeau  until  he  came  to  New 
York  with  Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt  in  the  fall  of 
1900 ;  and  the  grenadier  conceived  in  the  Porte  St. 


THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       69 

Martin  first  saw  the  footlights  in  the  Garden  Thea- 
tre. 

But  the  contemporary  English-speaking  stage 
furnishes  examples  just  as  striking  of  the  influence 
of  the  actor  on  the  dramatist.  Sir  Arthur  Wing 
Pinero's  greatest  heroine,  Paula  Tanqueray,  wore 
from  her  inception  the  physical  aspect  of  Mrs. 
Patrick  Campbell.  Many  of  the  most  effective 
dramas  of  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  have  been  built 
around  the  personality  of  Sir  Charles  Wyndham. 
The  Wyndham  part  in  Mr.  Jones's  plays  is  always 
a  gentleman  of  the  world,  who  understands  life  be- 
cause he  has  lived  it,  and  is  "  wise  with  the  quiet 
memory  of  old  pain."  He  is  moral  because  he 
knows  the  futility  of  immorality.  He  is  lonely, 
lovable,  dignified,  reliable,  and  sound.  By  serene 
and  unobtrusive  understanding  he  straightens  out 
the  difficulties  in  which  the  other  people  of  the  play 
have  wilfully  become  entangled.  He  shows  them 
the  error  of  their  follies,  preaches  a  worldly-wise 
little  sermon  to  each  one,  and  sends  them  back  to 
their  true  places  in  life,  sadder  and  wiser  men  and 
women.  In  order  to  give  Sir  Charles  Wyndham 
an  opportunity  to  display  all  phases  of  his  experi- 
enced gentility  in  such  a  character  as  this,  Mr. 
Jones  has  repeated  the  part  in  drama  after  drama. 

Many  of  the  greatest  characters  of  the  theatre 
have  been  so  essentially  imbued  with  the  physical 
and  mental  personaUtj  of  the  actors  who  created 


70   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

them  that  they  have  died  with  their  performers  and 
been  lost  forever  after  from  the  world  of  art.  In 
this  regard  we  think  at  once  of  Rip  Van  Winkle. 
The  little  play  that  Mr.  Jefferson,  with  the  aid  of 
Dion  Boucicault,  fashioned  out  of  Washington 
Irving's  story  is  scarcely  worth  the  reading ;  and 
if,  a  hundred  years  from  now,  any  student  of  the 
drama  happens  to  look  it  over,  he  may  wonder  in 
vain  why  it  was  so  beloved,  for  many,  many  years, 
by  all  America ;  and  there  will  come  no  answer, 
since  the  actor's  art  will  then  be  only  a  tale  that 
is  told.  So  Beau  Brummel  died  with  Mr.  Mans- 
field ;  and  if  our  children,  who  never  saw  his  superb 
performance,  chance  in  future  years  to  read  the 
lines  of  Mr.  Fitch's  play,  they  will  hardly  believe 
us  when  we  tell  them  that  the  character  of  Brum- 
mel once  was  great.  With  such  current  instances 
before  us,  it  ought  not  to  be  so  difficult  as  many 
university  professors  find  it  to  understand  the 
vogue  of  certain  plays  of  the  Elizabethan  and 
Restoration  eras  which  seem  to  us  now,  in  the  read- 
ing, lifeless  things.  When  we  study  the  mad 
dramas  of  Nat  Lee,  we  should  remember  Betterton ; 
and  properly  to  appreciate  Thomas  Otway,  we 
must  imagine  the  aspect  and  the  voice  of  Elizabeth 
Barry. 

It  may  truthfully  be  said  that  Mrs.  Barry  cre- 
ated Otway,  both  as  dramatist  and  poet;  for  Ths 
Orphan  and   Venice  Preserved,  the  two  most  pa- 


THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       71 

thetic  plan's  in  English,  would  never  have  been  writ- 
ten but  for  her.  It  is  often  thus  within  the  power 
of  an  actor  to  create  a  dramatist;  and  his  surest 
means  of  immortality  is  to  inspire  the  composition 
of  plays  which  may  survive  his  own  demise.  After 
Duse  is  dead,  poets  may  read  La  Citta  Morta,  and 
imagine  her.  The  memory  of  Coquelin  is,  in  this 
way,  likely  to  live  longer  than  that  of  Talma. 
We  can  merely  guess  at  Talma's  art,  because  the 
plays  in  which  he  acted  are  unreadable  to-day. 
But  if  M.  Rostand's  Cyrano  is  read  a  hundred 
years  from  now,  it  will  be  possible  for  students  of 
it  to  imagine  in  detail  the  salient  features  of  the 
art  of  Coquelin.  It  will  be  evident  to  them  that 
the  actor  made  love  luringly  and  died  effectively, 
that  he  was  capable  of  lyric  reading  and  staccato 
gasconade,  that  he  had  a  burly  humor  and  that 
touch  of  sentiment  that  trembles  into  tears.  Simi- 
larly we  know  to-day,  from  the  fact  that  Shake- 
speare played  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet,  that  he  must 
have  had  a  voice  that  was  full  and  resonant  and 
deep.  So  from  reading  the  plays  of  Moliere  we  can 
imagine  the  robust  figure  of  Magdeleine  Bejart, 
the  grace  of  La  Grange,  the  pretty  petulance  of  the 
flighty  fair  Armande. 

Some  sense  of  this  must  have  been  in  the  mind 
of  Sir  Henry  Ir\'ing  when  he  strove  industriously 
to  create  a  dramatist  who  might  survive  him  and 
immortalise   his    memory.     The    facile,    uncreative 


72   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Wills  was  granted  many  chances,  and  in  Charles  I 
lost  an  opportunity  to  make  a  lasting  drama. 
Lord  Tennyson  came  near  the  mark  in  Bechet ;  but 
this  play,  like  those  of  Wills,  has  not  proved  sturd}' 
enough  to  survive  the  actor  who  inspired  it.  For 
all  his  striving,  Sir  Henry  left  no  dramatist  as  a 
monument  to  his  art. 


IV 

STAGE  CONVENTIONS  IN  MODERN  TIMES 


In  1581  Sir  Philip  Sidney  praised  the  tragedy 
of  Gorboduc,  which  he  had  seen  acted  by  the  gen- 
tlemen of  the  Inner  Temple,  because  it  was  "  full 
of  stately  speeches  and  well-sounding  phrases." 
A  few  years  later  the  young  poet,  Christopher 
Marlowe,  promised  the  audience  of  his  initial  trag- 
edy that  they  should  "  hear  the  Scythian  Tam- 
burlaine  threatening  the  world  with  high  astound- 
ing terms."  These  two  statements  are  indicative 
of  the  tenor  of  Elizabethan  plays.  Gorboduc,  to 
be  sure,  was  a  ponderous  piece,  made  according  to 
the  pseudo-classical  fashion  that  soon  went  out  of 
favor;  while  Tamhurlaine  the  Great  was  trium- 
phant with  the  drums  and  tramplings  of  romance. 
The  two  plays  were  diametrically  opposed  in 
method ;  but  they  had  this  in  common :  each  was 
full  of  stately  speeches  and  of  high  astounding 
teiTTis. 

Nearly  a  century  later,  in  1670,  John  Dryden 

73 


74   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

added  to  the  second  part  of  his  Conquest  of 
Granada  an  epilogue  in  which  he  criticised  ad- 
versely the  dramatists  of  the  elder  age.  Speaking 
of  Ben  Jonson  and  his  contemporaries,  he  said: 

But  were  they  now  to  write,  when  critics  weigh 
Each  line,  and  every  word,  throughout  a  play, 
None  of  them,  no,  not  Jonson  in  his  height, 
Could  pass  without  allowing  grains   for  weight. 

Wit  's  now  arrived  to  a  more  high  degree; 
Our  native  language  more  refined  and  free: 
Our  ladies  and  our  men  now  speak  more  wit 
In  conversation  than  those  poets  writ. 

This  criticism  was  characteristic  of  a  new  era  that 
was  dawning  in  the  English  drama,  during  which 
a  playwright  could  hope  for  no  greater  glory  than 
to  be  praised  for  the  brilliancy  of  his  dialogue  or 
the  smartness  of  his  repartee. 

At  the  present  day,  if  you  ask  the  average 
theatre-goer  about  the  merits  of  the  play  that  he 
has  lately  witnessed,  he  will  praise  it  not  for  its 
stately  speeches  nor  its  clever  repartee,  but  because 
its  presentation  was  "  so  natural."  He  will  tell 
you  that  A  Woman's  Way  gave  an  apt  and  ad- 
mirable reproduction  of  contemporary  manners  in 
New  York;  he  will  mention  the  make  of  the  auto- 
mobile that  went  chug-chugging  off  the  stage  at 
the  second  curtain-fall  of  Man  and  Superman,  or 
he  will  assure  you  that  Lincoln  made  him  feel  the 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS        75 

very  presence  of  the  martyred  President  his  father 
actually  saw. 

These  different  classes  of  comments  give  evidence 
of  three  distinct  steps  in  the  evolution  of  the  Eng- 
lish drama.  During  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  it  was  essentially  a  Drama  of  Rhetoric; 
throughout  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  mainly 
a  Drama  of  Conversation ;  and  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  it  has  growT^i  to  be  a  Drama  of 
Illusion.  During  the  first  period  it  aimed  at  poetic 
power,  during  the  second  at  brilliancy  of  dialogue, 
and  during  the  third  at  naturalness  of  represent- 
ment.  Throughout  the  last  three  centuries,  the 
gradual  perfecting  of  the  physical  conditions  of 
the  theatre  has  made  possible  the  Drama  of  Illu- 
sion ;  the  conventions  of  the  actor's  art  have  under- 
gone a  similar  progression ;  and  at  the  same  time 
the  change  in  the  taste  of  the  theatre-going  public 
has  made  a  well-sustained  illusion  a  condition  prece- 
dent to  success  upon  the  modern  stage. 


Mr.  Ben  Greet,  in  his  sceneless  performances 
of  Shakespeare  during  recent  seasons,  has  re- 
minded us  of  some  of  the  main  physical  features 
of  the  Elizabethan  theatre;  and  the  others  are  ro 
generally  known  that  we  need  review  them  only 
briefly.     A    typical    Elizabethan    play-house,    like 


76   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

the  Globe  or  the  Blackfriars,  stood  roofless  in  the 
air.  The  stage  was  a  projecting  platform  sur- 
rounded on  three  sides  by  the  groundlings  who  had 
paid  threepence  for  the  privilege  of  standing  in 
the  pit ;  and  around  this  pit,  or  yard,  were  built 
boxes  for  the  city  madams  and  the  gentlemen  of 
means.  Often  the  side  edges  of  the  stage  itself 
M'ere  lined  with  young  gallants  perched  on  three- 
legged  stools,  who  twitted  the  actors  when  they 
pleased  or  disturbed  the  play  by  boisterous  inter- 
ruptions. At  the  back  of  the  platform  was  hung 
an  arras  through  which  the  players  entered,  and 
which  could  be  drawn  aside  to  discover  a  set  piece 
of  stage  furnishing,  like  a  bed  or  a  banqueting 
board.  Above  the  arras  was  built  an  upper  room, 
which  might  serve  as  Juliet's  balcony  or  as  the 
speaking-place  of  a  commandant  supposed  to  stand 
upon  a  city's  walls.  No  scenery  was  employed,  ex- 
cept some  elaborate  properties  that  might  be 
drawn  on  and  off  before  the  eyes  of  the  spectators, 
like  the  trellised  arbor  in  The  Spanish  Tragedy 
on  which  the  young  Horatio  was  hanged.  Since 
there  was  no  curtain,  the  actors  could  never  be 
"  discovered "  on  the  stage  and  were  forced  to 
make  an  exit  at  the  end  of  every  scene.  Plays 
were  produced  bj'  daylight,  under  the  sun  of  after- 
noon ;  and  the  stage  could  not  be  darkened,  even 
when  it  was  necessary  for  Macbeth  to  perpetrate 
a  midnight  murder. 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS        77 

In  order  to  succeed  in  a  theatre  such  as  this, 
the  drama  was  necessaril}'  forced  to  be  a  Drama 
of  Rhetoric.  From  1576,  when  James  Burbage 
built  the  first  plaj^-house  in  London,  until  1642, 
when  the  theatres  were  formally  closed  by  act  of 
Parliament,  the  drama  dealt  with  stately  speeches 
and  with  high  astounding  terms.  It  was  played 
upon  a  platform,  and  had  to  appeal  more  to  the 
ears  of  the  audience  than  to  their  e3es.  Spectacu- 
lar elements  it  had  to  some  extent, —  gaud}',  though 
inappropriate,  costumes,  and  stately  processions 
across  the  stage;  but  no  careful  imitation  of  the 
actual  facts  of  life,  no  illusion  of  reality  in  the 
representment,  could  possibly  be  effected. 

The  absence  of  scener}'  forced  the  dramatists 
of  the  time  to  introduce  poetic  passages  to  suggest 
the  atmosphere  of  their  scenes.  Lorenzo  and  Jes- 
sica opened  the  last  act  of  The  Merchant  of 
Venice  with  a  pretty  dialogue  descriptive  of  a 
moonlit  evening,  and  the  banished  duke  in  As  You 
Like  It  discoursed  at  length  upon  the  pleasures  of 
life  in  the  forest.  The  stage  could  not  be  dark- 
ened in  Macbeth;  but  the  hero  was  made  to  say, 
"  Light  thickens,  and  the  crow  makes  wing  to  the 
rooky  wood."  Sometimes,  when  the  scene  was  sup- 
posed to  change  from  one  country  to  another,  a 
chorus  was  sent  forth,  as  in  Henry  V,  to  ask  the 
audience  frankly  to  transfer  their  imaginations 
overseas. 


78   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

The  fact  that  the  stage  was  surrounded  on 
three  sides  by  standing  spectators  forced  the  actor 
to  emulate  the  platform  orator.  Set  speeches  were 
introduced  bodily  into  the  text  of  a  play,  although 
they  impeded  the  progress  of  the  action.  Jacques 
reined  a  comed}^  to  a  standstill  while  he  discoursed 
at  length  upon  the  seven  ages  of  man.  Soliloquies 
were  common,  and  formal  dialogues  prevailed. 
By  convention,  all  characters,  regardless  of  their 
education  or  station  in  life,  were  considered  capa- 
ble of  talking  not  only  verse,  but  poetry.  The 
untutored  sea-captain  in  Twelfth  Night  spoke  of 
"  Arion  on  the  dolphin's  back,"  and  in  another 
play  the  sapheads  Salanio  and  Salarino  discoursed 
most  eloquent  music. 

In  New  York  at  the  present  day  a  singular  simi- 
larity to  Elizabethan  conventions  may  be  noted 
in  the  Chinese  theatre  in  Doyer  Street.  Here  we 
have  a  platform  drama  in  all  its  nakedness.  There 
is  no  curtain,  and  the  stage  is  bare  of  scenery. 
The  musicians  sit  upon  the  stage,  and  the  actors 
enter  through  an  arras  at  the  right  or  at  the  lefl: 
of  the  rear  wall.  The  costumes  are  elaborate,  and 
the  players  frequently  parade  around  the  stage. 
Long  speeches  and  set  colloquies  are  common. 
Only  the  crudest  properties  are  used.  Two  can- 
dlesticks and  a  small  image  on  a  table  are  taken 
to  represent  a  temple ;  a  man  seated  upon  an  over- 
turned  chair   is    supposed   to   be    a   general   on   a 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS        79 

charger;  and  when  a  character  is  obliged  to  cross  a 
river,  he  walks  the  length  of  the  stage  trailing  an 
oar  behind  him.  The  audience  does  not  seem  to 
notice  that  these  conventions  are  unnatural, —  any 
more  than  did  the  'prentices  in  the  pit,  when 
Burbage,  with  the  sun  shining  full  upon  his  face, 
announced  that  it  was  then  the  very  witching  time 
of  night. 

The  Drama  of  Rhetoric  which  was  demanded  by 
the  physical  conditions  of  the  Elizabethan  stage 
survived  the  Restoration  and  did  not  die  until  the 
day  of  Addison's  Cato.  Imitations  of  it  have 
even  struggled  on  the  stage  within  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  Virginius  of  Sheridan  Knowles  and 
the  Richelieu  of  Bulwer-Lytton  were  both  framed 
upon  the  Elizabethan  model,  and  earned  the  plat- 
form drama  down  to  recent  times.  But  though 
traces  of  the  platform  drama  still  exist,  the  perioH 
of  its  pristine  vigor  terminated  with  the  closing  of 
the  theatres  in  1642. 

When  the  drama  was  resumed  in  1660,  the  physi- 
cal conditions  of  the  theatre  underwent  a  material 
change.  At  this  time  two  great  play-houses  were 
chartered, —  the  King's  Theatre  in  Drury  Lane, 
and  the  Duke  of  York's  Theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
PMelds.  Thomas  Killigrew,  the  manager  of  the 
Theatre  Royal,  was  the  first  to  introduce  women 
actors  on  the  stage;  and  })arts  which  formerly  had 
beca   played    by    boys    were    soon    perfonncd    by 


80   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

actresses  as  moving  as  the  great  Elizabeth  Barry. 
To  William  Davcnant,  the  manager  of  the  Duke's 
Theatre,  belongs  the  credit  for  a  still  more  impor- 
tant innovation.  During  the  eighteen  years  when 
public  dramatic  performances  had  been  prohibited, 
he  had  secured  permission  now  and  then  to  produce 
an  opera  upon  a  private  stage.  For  these  musi- 
cal entertainments  he  took  as  a  model  the  masques, 
or  court  celebrations,  which  had  been  the  most 
popular  form  of  private  theatricals  in  the  days 
of  Elizabeth  and  James.  It  is  well  known  that 
masques  had  been  produced  with  elaborate  scenic 
appointments  even  at  a  time  when  the  professional 
stage  was  bare  of  scenery.  While  the  theatres  had 
been  closed,  Davenant  had  used  scenery  in  his 
operas,  to  keep  them  out  of  the  forbidden  pale  of 
professional  plays;  and  now  in  1660,  when  he 
came  forth  as  a  regular  theatre  manager,  he  con- 
tinued to  use  scenery,  and  introduced  it  into  the 
production   of  comedies  and  tragedies. 

But  the  use  of  scenery  was  not  the  only  inno- 
vation that  carried  the  Restoration  theatre  far 
beyond  its  Elizabethan  prototype.  Play-houses 
were  now  regularly  roofed ;  and  the  stage  was  arti- 
ficially lighted  by  lamps.  The  shifting  of  scenery 
demanded  the  use  of  a  curtain ;  and  it  became  possi- 
ble for  the  first  time  to  disclose  actors  upon  the 
stage  and  to  leave  them  grouped  before  the  audience 
at  the  end  of  an  act. 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS         81 

All  of  these  improvements  rendered  possible  a 
closer  approach  to  naturalness  of  representment 
than  had  ever  been  made  before.  Palaces  and 
flowered  meads,  drawing-rooms  and  city  streets, 
could  now  be  suggested  by  actual  scenery  in- 
stead of  by  descriptive  passages  in  the  text.  Cos- 
tumes became  appropriate,  and  properties  were 
more  nicely  chosen  to  give  a  flavor  of  actuality 
to  the  scene.  At  the  same  time  the  platform  re- 
ceded, and  the  groundlings  no  longer  stood  about 
it  on  the  sides.  The  gallants  were  banished  from 
the  stage,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  audience 
was  gathered  directl}'  in  front  of  the  actors.  Some 
traces  of  the  former  platform  system,  however, 
still  remained.  In  front  of  the  curtain,  the  stage 
projected  into  a  wide  "  apron,"  as  it  was  called, 
lined  on  either  side  by  boxes  filled  with  spectators; 
and  the  house  was  so  inadequately  lighted  that 
almost  all  the  acting  had  to  be  done  within  the 
focus  of  the  footlights.  After  the  curtain  rose, 
the  actors  advanced  into  this  projecting  "  apron  " 
and  performed  the  main  business  of  the  act  beyond 
the  range  of  scenery  and  furniture. 

With  the  "  apron  "  stage  arose  a  more  natural 
form  of  play  than  had  been  produced  upon  the 
Elizabethan  platform.  The  Drama  of  Rhetoric 
was  soon  supplanted  by  the  Drama  of  Conver- 
sation. Oratory  gradually  disappeared,  set 
speeches  were  abolished,  and  poetic  lines  gave  place 


82   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

to  rapid  repartee.  The  comedy  of  conversation 
that  began  with  Sir  George  Etherege  in  1664 
reached  its  culmination  with  Sheridan  in  a  httle 
more  than  a  hundred  3'ears;  and  during  this  cen- 
tury the  drama  became  more  and  more  natural  as 
the  years  progressed.  Even  in  the  days  of  Sheri- 
dan, however,  the  conventions  of  the  theatre  were 
still  essentially  unreal.  An  actor  entered  a  room 
by  walking  through  the  walls ;  stage  furniture  was 
formally  arranged ;  and  each  act  terminated  with 
the  players  grouped  in  a  semicircle  and  bowing 
obeisance  to  applause.  The  lines  in  Sheridan's 
comedies  were  indiscriminately  witty.  Every  char- 
acter, regardless  of  his  birth  or  education,  had  his 
clever  things  to  say ;  and  the  servant  bandied  epi- 
grams with  the  lord. 

It  was  not  until  the  nineteenth  century  was  well 
under  way  that  a  decided  improvement  was  made 
in  the  physical  conditions  of  the  theatre.  When 
Madame  Vestris  assumed  the  management  of  the 
Olympic  Theatre  in  London  in  1831  she  inaugu- 
rated a  new  era  in  stage  conventions.  Her  hus- 
band, Charles  James  Mathews,  says  in  his  auto- 
biography, "  There  was  introduced  that  reform  in 
all  theatrical  matters  which  has  since  been  adopted 
in  every  theatre  in  the  kingdom.  Drawing-rooms 
were  fitted  up  like  drawing-rooms  and  furnished 
with  care  and  taste.  Two  chairs  no  longer  indicated 
that  two  persons  were  to  be  seated,  the  two  chairs 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS         83 

being  removed  indicating  that  the  two  persons 
were  not  to  be  seated."  At  the  first  performance 
of  Boucicault's  London  Assurance,  in  1841,  a  fur- 
ther innovation  was  marked  by  the  introduction 
of  the  "  box  set,"  as  it  is  called.  Instead  of  rep- 
resenting an  interior  scene  by  a  series  of  wings 
set  one  behind  the  other,  the  scene-shifters  now 
built  the  side  walls  of  a  room  solidly  from  front 
to  rear ;  and  the  actors  were  made  to  enter,  not  by 
walking  through  the  wings,  but  by  opening  real 
doors  that  turned  upon  their  hinges.  At  the  same 
time,  instead  of  the  formal  stage  furniture  of  for- 
mer years,  appointments  were  introduced  that  were 
carefully  designed  to  suit  the  actual  conditions  of 
the  room  to  be  portra\'ed.  From  this  time  stage- 
settings  advanced  rapidly  to  greater  and  greater 
degrees  of  naturalness.  Acting,  however,  was  still 
largely  conventional ;  for  the  "  apron  "  stage  sur- 
vived, with  its  semicircle  of  footlights,  and  every 
important  piece  of  stage  business  had  to  be  done 
within  their  focus. 

The  greatest  revolution  of  modern  times  in  stage 
conventions  owes  its  origin  directly  to  the  inven- 
tion of  the  electric  light.  Now  that  it  is  possible 
to  make  every  corner  of  the  stage  clearly  visible 
from  all  parts  of  the  house,  it  is  no  longer  neces- 
sary for  an  actor  to  hold  the  centre  of  the  scene. 
The  introduction  of  electric  li^Mits  abolished  the 
necessity  of  the  "  apron  "  stage  and  made  possible 


84   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

the  picture-frame  proscenium ;  and  the  removal  of 
the  "  apron  "  struck  the  death-blow  to  the  Drama 
of  Conversation  and  led  directly  to  the  Drama  of 
Illusion.  As  soon  as  the  picture-frame  prosce- 
nium was  adopted,  the  audience  demanded  a  picture 
to  be  placed  within  the  frame.  The  stage  became 
essentially  pictorial,  and  began  to  be  used  to  rep- 
resent faithfully  the  actual  facts  of  life.  Now 
for  the  first  time  was  realised  the  graphic  value  of 
the  curtain-fall.  It  became  customary  to  ring 
the  curtain  down  upon  a  picture  that  summed  up 
in  itself  the  entire  dramatic  accomplishment  of  the 
scene,  instead  of  terminating  an  act  with  a  gen- 
eral exodus  of  the  performers  or  with  a  semicircle 
of  bows. 

The  most  extraordinary  advances  in  natural 
stage-settings  have  been  made  within  the  memory 
of  the  present  generation  of  theatre-goers.  Sun- 
sets and  starlit  skies,  moonlight  rippling  over 
moving  waves,  fires  that  really  bum,  windows  of 
actual  glass,  fountains  plashing  with  real  water, 
—  all  of  the  naturalistic  devices  of  the  latter-day 
Drama  of  Illusion  have  been  developed  in  the  last 
few  decades. 

m 

Acting  in  Elizabethan  days  was  a  presentative, 
rather  than  a  representative,  art.  The  actor  was 
always  an  actor,  and  absorbed  his  part  in  himself 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS        85 

rather  than  submerging  himself  in  his  part. 
Magnificence  rather  than  appropriateness  of  cos- 
tume was  desired  by  the  phitforin  actor  of  the 
Drama  of  Rhetoric.  He  wished  all  eyes  to  be  di- 
rected to  himself,  and  never  desired  to  be  consid- 
ered merely  as  a  component  part  of  a  great  stage 
picture.  Actors  at  that  time  were  often  robus- 
tious, periwig-pated  fellows  who  sawed  the  air  with 
their  hands  and  tore  a  passion  to  tatters. 

With  the  rapid  development  of  the  theatre  after 
the  Restoration,  came  a  movement  toward  greater 
naturalness  in  the  conventions  of  acting.  The 
player  in  the  "  apron  "  of  a  Queen  Anne  stage 
resembled  a  drawing-room  entertainer  rather  than 
a  platform  orator.  Fine  gentlemen  and  ladies  in 
the  boxes  that  lined  the  "  apron  "  applauded  the 
witticisms  of  Sir  Courtly  Nice  or  Sir  Fopling  Flut- 
ter, as  if  they  themselves  were  partakers  in  the 
conversation.  Actors  like  Colley  Gibber  acquired 
a  great  reputation  for  their  natural  representment 
of  the  manners  of  polite  society. 

The  Drama  of  Conversation,  therefore,  was 
acted  with  more  natural  conventions  than  the 
Drama  of  Rhetoric  that  had  preceded  it.  And  yet 
we  find  that  Charles  Lamb,  in  criticising  the  old 
actors  of  the  eighteenth  century,  praises  them  for 
the  essential  unreality  of  their  presentations. 
They  carried  the  spectator  far  away  from  the 
actual  world  to  a  region  where  society  w5is  more 


86   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

splendid  and  careless  and  brilliant  and  lax.  They 
did  not  aim  to  produce  an  illusion  of  naturalness 
as  our  actors  do  to-day.  If  we  compare  the  old- 
style  acting  of  The  School  for  Scandal,  that  is 
described  in  the  essays  of  Lamb,  with  the  modern 
performance  of  Sweet  Kitty  Bellairs,  which  dealt 
with  the  same  period,  we  shall  see  at  once  how  mod- 
ern acting  has  grown  less  presentative  and  more 
representative  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Bensley 
and  Bannister. 

The  Drama  of  Rhetoric  and  the  Drama  of  Con- 
versation both  struggled  on  in  sporadic  survivals 
throughout  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  during  this  period  the  methods  of  the 
platform  actor  and  the  parlor  actor  were  con- 
sistently maintained.  The  actor  of  the  "  old 
school,"  as  we  are  now  fond  of  calling  him,  was 
compelled  by  the  physical  conditions  of  the  thea- 
tre to  keep  within  the  focus  of  the  footlights,  and 
therefore  in  close  proximity  to  the  spectators.  He 
could  take  the  audience  into  his  confidence  more 
readily  than  can  the  player  of  the  present.  Some- 
times even  now  an  actor  steps  out  of  the  picture 
in  order  to  talk  intimately  with  the  audience;  but 
usually  at  the  present  day  it  is  customary  for  ac- 
tors to  seem  totally  oblivious  of  the  spectators  and 
remain  always  within  the  picture  on  the  stage. 
The  actor  of  the  "  old  school "  was  fond  of  the 
long  speeches  of  the  Drama  of  Rhetoric  and  the 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS         87 

brilliant  lines  of  the  Drama  of  Conversation.  It 
may  be  remembered  that  the  old  actor  in  Trelawn-y 
of  the  Wells  condemned  a  new-style  play  because 
it  didn't  contain  "  what  you  could  really  call  a 
speech."  He  wanted  what  the  French  term  a 
tirade  to  exercise  his  lungs  and  split  the  ears  of 
the  groundlings. 

But  with  the  growth  of  the  Drama  of  Illusion, 
produced  within  a  picture-frame  proscenium,  actors 
have  come  to  recognise  and  apply  the  maxim, 
*'  Actions  speak  louder  than  words."  What  an 
actor  does  is  now  considered  more  important  than 
what  he  says.  The  most  powerful  moment  in*  Mrs, 
Fiske's  performance  of  Hedda  Gabler  was  the 
minute  or  more  in  the  last  act  when  she  remained 
absolutely  silent.  This  moment  was  worth  a  dozen 
of  the  "  real  speeches  "  that  were  sighed  for  by  the 
old  actor  in  Trelaumy.  Few  of  those  who  saw 
James  A.  Heme  in  Shore  Acres  will  forget  the 
impressive  close  of  the  play.  The  stage  repre- 
sented the  living-room  of  a  homely  country-house, 
with  a  large  open  fireplace  at  one  side.  The  night 
grew  late;  and  one  by  one  the  characters  retired, 
until  at  last  old  Nathaniel  Berry  was  left  alone 
upon  the  stage.  Slowly  he  locked  the  doors  and 
closed  the  windows  and  put  all  things  in  order  for 
the  night.  Then  he  took  a  candle  and  went  up- 
stairs to  bed,  leaving  the  room  empty  and  dark 
except  for  the  flaming  of  the  fire  on  the  hearth. 


88   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Great  progress  toward  naturalness  in  contem- 
porary acting  has  been  occasioned  by  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  sohloquy  and  the  aside.  The  re- 
linquishment of  these  two  time-honored  expedients 
has  been  accomplished  only  in  most  recent  times. 
Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  early  farces  abounded  with 
asides  and  even  lengthy  soliloquies;  but  his  later 
plays  are  made  entirely  without  them.  The  pres- 
ent prevalence  of  objection  to  both  is  due  largely 
to  the  strong  influence  of  Ibsen's  rigid  dramaturgic 
structure.  Dramatists  have  become  convinced  that 
the  soliloquy  and  the  aside  are  lazy  expedients, 
and  that  with  a  little  extra  labor  the  most  com- 
plicated plot  may  be  developed  without  resort  to 
either.  The  passing  of  the  aside  has  had  an  im- 
portant efl'ect  on  naturalness  of  acting.  In  speak- 
ing a  hne  audible  to  the  audience  but  supposed  to 
be  unheard  by  the  other  characters  on  the  stage, 
an  actor  was  forced  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
speech  to  violate  the  illusion  of  the  stage  picture 
by  stepping  out  of  the  frame,  as  it  were,  in  order 
to  take  the  audience  into  his  confidence.  Not  until 
the  aside  was  abolished  did  it  become  possible  for 
an  actor  to  follow  the  modern  rule  of  seeming 
totally  oblivious  of  his  audience. 

There  is  less  logical  objection  to  the  soliloquy, 
however;  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  pres- 
ent avoidance  of  it  is  overstrained.  Stage  solilo- 
quies  are   of  two   kinds,  which   we   may   call  for 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS        89 

convenience  the  constructive  and  the  reflective.  By 
a  constructive  soHloquy  we  mean  one  introduced 
arbitrarily  to  explain  the  progress  of  the  plot,  like 
that  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  act  of  Lady 
Windermere^s  Fan,  in  which  the  heroine  frankly 
tells  the  audience  what  she  has  been  thinking  and 
doing  between  the  acts.  By  a  reflective  soliloquy 
we  mean  one  like  those  of  Hamlet,  in  which  the 
audience  is  given  merely  a  revelation  of  a  train  of 
personal  thought  or  emotion,  and  in  which  the 
dramatist  makes  no  utilitarian  reference  to  the 
structure  of  the  plot.  The  constructive  soliloquy 
is  as  undesirable  as  the  aside,  because  it  forces  the 
actor  out  of  the  stage  picture  in  exactly  the  same 
way;  but  a  good  actor  may  easily  read  a  reflective 
soliloquy  without  seeming  in  the  least  unnatural. 

Modern  methods  of  lighting,  as  we  have  seen, 
have  carried  the  actor  away  from  the  centre  of  the 
stage,  so  that  now  important  business  is  often  done 
far  from  the  footlights.  This  tendency  has  led  to 
further  innovations.  Actors  now  frequently  turn 
their  backs  to  the  audience, —  a  thing  unheard  of 
before  the  advent  of  the  Drama  of  Illusion ;  and 
frequently,  also,  they  do  their  most  eff^ective  work 
at  moments  when  they  have  no  lines  to  speak. 

But  the  present  tendency  toward  naturalness  of 
representment  has,  to  some  extent,  exaggerated  the 
importance  of  stage-management  even  at  the  ex- 
pense of  acting.     A  successful  play  by  Clyde  Fitch 


90   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

usually  owed  its  popularity,  not  so  much  to  the 
excellence  of  the  acting  as  to  the  careful  attention 
of  the  author  to  the  most  minute  details  of  the 
stage  picture.  Fitch  could  make  an  act  out  of  a 
wedding  or  a  funeral,  a  Cook's  tour  or  a  steamer 
deck,  a  bed  or  an  automobile.  The  extraordinary 
cleverness  and  accuracy  of  his  observation  of  those 
petty  details  that  make  life  a  thing  of  shreds  and 
patches  were  all  that  distinguished  his  method  from 
that  of  the  melodramatist  who  makes  a  scene  out 
of  a  buzz-saw  or  a  waterfall,  a  locomotive  or  a 
ferryboat.  Oftentimes  the  contemporary  play- 
wright follows  the  method  suggested  by  Mr.  Crum- 
mies to  Nicholas  Nickleby,  and  builds  his  piece 
around  "  a  real  pump  and  two  washing-tubs."  At 
a  certain  moment  in  the  second  act  of  The  Girl  of 
the  Golden  West  the  wind-storm  was  the  real  actor 
in  the  scene,  and  the  hero  and  the  heroine  were  but 
mutes  or  audience  to  the  act. 

This  emphasis  of  stage  illusion  is  fraught  with 
certain  dangers  to  the  art  of  acting.  In  the  mod- 
ern picture-play  the  lines  themselves  are  often  of 
such  minor  importance  that  the  success  or  failure 
of  the  piece  depends  little  on  the  reading  of  the 
words.  Many  young  actors,  therefore,  cannot  get 
that  rigid  training  in  the  art  of  reading  which 
could  be  secured  in  the  stock  companies  of  the  gen- 
eration past.  Poor  reading  is  the  one  great  weak- 
ness of  contemporary  acting.     I  can  think  of  only 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS        91 

one  actor  on  the  American  stage  to-day  whose  read- 
ing of  both  prose  and  verse  is  always  faultless. 
I  mean  Mr.  Otis  Skinner,  who  secured  his  early 
training  playing  minor  parts  with  actors  of  the 
"  old  school."  It  has  become  possible,  under  pres- 
ent conditions,  for  young  actresses  ignorant  of  elo- 
cution and  unskilled  in  the  first  principles  of  im- 
personation to  be  exploited  as  stars  merely  because 
of  their  personal  charm.  A  beautiful  young 
woman,  whether  she  can  act  or  not,  may  easily 
appear  "  natural "  in  a  society  pl^y,  especially 
written  around  her ;  and  the  public,  lured  by  a  pair 
of  eyes  or  a  head  of  hair,  is  made  as  blind  as  love 
to  the  absence  of  histrionic  art.  When  the  great 
Madame  Modjeska  last  appeared  at  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Theatre,  presenting  some  of  the  most  won- 
derful plays  that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  she 
played  to  empty  houses,  while  the  New  York  public 
was  flocking  to  see  some  new  slip  of  a  girl  seem 
"  natural  "  on  the  stage  and  appear  pretty  behind 
the  picture-frame  proscenium. 

IV 

A  comparison  of  an  Elizabethan  audience 
with  a  theatre-full  of  people  at  the  present  day  is, 
in  many  ways,  disadvantageous  to  the  latter. 
With  our  forefathers,  theatre-going  was  an  exer- 
cise in  the  lovely  art  of  "  making-believe."  They 
were  told  that  it  was  night  and  they   forgot  the 


92   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

sunlight ;  their  imaginations  swept  around  Eng- 
land to  the  trampling  of  armored  kings,  or  were 
whisked  away  at  a  word  to  that  Bohemia  which  is 
a  desert  country  by  the  sea;  and  while  they  looked 
upon  a  platform  of  bare  boards,  they  breathed 
the  sweet  air  of  the  Forest  of  Arden.  They  needed 
no  scenery  by  Alma-Tadema  to  make  them  think 
themselves  in  Rome.  "  What  country,  friends,  is 
this?  ",  asked  Viola.  "  This  is  Illyria,  lady."  And 
the  boys  in  the  pit  scented  the  keen,  salt  air  and 
heard  the  surges  crashing  on  the  rocky  shore. 

Nowadays  elaborateness  of  stage  illusion  has 
made  spoiled  children  of  us  all.  We  must  have 
a  doll  with  real  hair,  or  else  we  cannot  play  at 
being  mothers.  We  have  been  pampered  with 
mechanical  toys  until  we  have  lost  the  art  of  play- 
ing without  them.  Where  have  our  imaginations 
gone,  that  we  must  have  real  rain  upon  the  stage? 
Shall  we  clamor  for  real  snow  before  long,  that 
must  be  kept  in  cold  storage  against  the  spring 
season?  A  longing  for  concreteness  has  befogged 
our  fantasy.  Even  so  excellent  an  actor  as  Mr. 
Forbes-Robertson  cannot  read  the  great  speech  be- 
ginning, "  Look  here,  upon  this  picture  and  on 
this,"  in  which  Hamlet  obviously  refers  to  two  im- 
aginary portraits  in  his  mind's  eye,  without  point- 
ing successively  to  two  absurd  caricatures  that  are 
daubed  upon  the  scenery. 

The  theatre  has  grown  older  since  the  days  when 


MODERN  STAGE  CONVENTIONS        93 

Burbage  recited  that  same  speech  upon  a  bare 
platform ;  but  I  am  not  entirely  sure  that  it  has 
grown  wiser.  We  theatre-goers  have  come  to  man- 
hood and  have  put  away  childish  things ;  but  there 
was  a  sweetness  about  the  naivete  of  childhood  that 
we  can  never  quite  regain.  No  longer  do  we  dream 
ourselves  in  a  garden  of  springtide  blossoms ;  we 
can  only  look  upon  canvas  trees  and  paper  flowers. 
No  longer  are  we  charmed  away  to  that  imagined 
spot  where  journeys  end  in  lovers'  meeting;  we 
can  only  look  upon  love  in  a  parlor  and  notice 
that  the  furniture  is  natural.  No  longer  do  we 
harkcn  to  the  rich  resonance  of  the  Drama  of 
Rhetoric;  no  longer  do  our  minds  kindle  with  the 
brilliant  epigrams  of  the  Drama  of  Conversation. 
Good  reading  is  disappearing  from  the  stage;  and 
in  its  place  we  are  left  the  devices  of  the  stage- 
carpenter. 

It  would  be  absurd  to  deny  that  modem  stage- 
craft has  made  possible  in  the  theatre  many  excel- 
lent effects  that  were  not  dreamt  of  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  Shakespeare.  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's 
plays  are  better  made  than  those  of  the  Elizabeth- 
ans, and  in  a  narrow  sense  hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature  more  successfully  than  theirs.  But  our 
latter-day  fondness  for  natural  representment  has 
afflicted  us  with  one  tendency  that  the  Elizabethans 
were  luckily  without.  In  our  desire  to  imitate  the 
actual   facts   of  life,   we   sometimes   become   near- 


94   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

sighted  and  forget  the  larger  truths  that  underlie 
them.  We  give  our  plays  a  definite  date  by  found- 
ing them  on  passing  fashions ;  we  make  them  of  an 
age,  not  for  all  time.  We  discuss  contemporary 
social  problems  on  the  stage  instead  of  the  eternal 
verities  lodged  deep  in  the  general  heart  of  man. 
We  have  outgrown  our  pristine  simplicity,  but  we 
have  not  yet  arrived  at  the  age  of  wisdom.  Per- 
haps when  playgoers  have  progressed  for  another 
century  or  two,  they  may  discard  some  of  the  trap- 
pings and  the  suits  of  our  present  drama,  and  be- 
come again  like  little  children. 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  IN  THEATRICAL 
PERFORMANCES 


According  to  the  late  Herbert  Spencer,  the  sole 
source  of  force  in  writing  is  an  ability  to  economise 
the  attention  of  the  reader.  The  word  should  be 
a  window  to  the  thought  and  should  transmit  it  as 
transparently  as  possible.  He  says,  toward  the 
beginning  of  his  Philosophy  of  Style: 

A  reader  or  listener  has  at  each  moment  but  a  limited 
amount  of  mental  power  available.  To  recognise  and  in- 
terpret the  symbols  presented  to  him  requires  a  part  of 
this  power;  to  arrange  and  combine  the  images  suggested 
requires  a  further  part;  and  only  that  part  which  remains 
can  be  used  for  realising  the  thought  conveyed.  Hence, 
the  more  time  and  attention  it  takes  to  receive  and  under- 
stand each  sentence,  the  less  time  and  attention  can  be 
given  to  the  contained  idea;  and  the  less  vividly  will  that 
idea  be  conveyed. 

Spencer  drew  his  illustrations  of  this  principle 
mainly  from  the  literature  of  the  library ;  but  its 
application  is  even  more  important  in  the  literature 
of  the  stage.  So  many  and  so  diverse  are  the  ele- 
ments of  a  theatrical  performance  that,  unless  the 

95 


96       THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

attention  of  the  spectator  is  attracted  at  every  nio-< 
ment  to  the  main  dramatic  purpose  of  the  scene, 
he  will  sit  wide-eyed,  like  a  child  at  a  three-ring 
circus,  with  his  mind  fluttering  from  point  to  point 
and  his  interest  dispersed  and  scattered.  A  per- 
fect theatrical  performance  must  harmonise  the 
work  of  many  men.  The  dramatist,  the  actors 
main  and  minor,  the  stage-manager,  the  scene- 
painter,  the  costumer,  the  leader  of  the  orchestra, 
must  all  contribute  their  separate  talents  to  the 
production  of  a  single  work  of  art.  It  follows 
that  a  nice  adjustment  of  parts,  a  discriminating 
subordination  of  minor  elements  to  major,  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  in  order  that  the  attention  of  the 
audience  may  be  focused  at  every  moment  upon 
the  central  meaning  of  the  scene.  If  the  spectator 
looks  at  scenery  when  he  should  be  listening  to 
lines,  if  his  attention  Is  startled  by  some  unex- 
pected device  of  stage-management  at  a  time  when 
he  ought  to  be  looking  at  an  actor's  face,  or  if 
his  mind  is  kept  for  a  moment  uncertain  of  the 
most  emphatic  feature  of  a  scene,  the  main  effect 
is  lost  and  that  part  of  the  performance  is  a 
failure. 

It  may  be  profitable  to  notice  some  of  the  tech- 
nical devices  by  which  attention  is  economised  in  the 
theatre  and  the  interest  of  the  audience  is  thereby 
centred  upon  the  main  business  of  the  moment.  In 
particular  it  is  important  to  observe  how  a  scat- 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  97 

tering  of  attention  is  avoided;  how,  when  many 
things  are  shown  at  once  upon  the  stage,  it  is  possi- 
ble to  make  an  audience  look  at  one  and  not  observe 
the  others.  We  shall  consider  the  subject  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  dramatist,  from  that  of  the  ac- 
tor, and  from  that  of  the  stage-manager. 

II 

The  dramatist,  in  writing,  labors  under  a  disad- 
vantage that  is  not  suffered  by  the  novelist.  If  a 
passage  in  a  novel  is  not  perfectly  clear  at  the  first 
glance,  the  reader  may  always  turn  back  the  pages 
and  read  the  scene  again;  but  on  the  stage  a  line 
once  spoken  can  never  be  recalled.  When,  there- 
fore, an  important  point  is  to  be  set  forth,  the 
dramatist  cannot  afford  to  risk  his  clearness  upon 
a  single  line.  This  is  particularly  true  in  the  be- 
ginning of  a  play.  When  the  curtain  rises,  there 
is  always  a  fluttering  of  programs  and  a  buzz 
of  unfinished  conversation.  INIany  spectators  come 
in  late  and  hide  the  stage  from  those  behind  them 
while  they  are  taking  off  their  wraps.  Conse- 
quently, most  dramatists,  in  the  preliminary  expo- 
sition that  must  always  start  a  play,  contrive  to 
state  every  important  fact  at  least  three  times: 
first,  for  the  attentive ;  second,  for  the  intelligent ; 
and  third,  for  the  large  mass  that  may  have  missed 
the  first  two  statements.  Of  course,  the  method  of 
presentment  must  be  very  deftly  varied,  in  order 


98   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

that  the  artifice  may  not  appear;  but  this  simple 
rule  of  three  is  almost  always  practised.  It  was 
used  with  rare  effect  by  Eugene  Scribe,  who,  al- 
though he  was  too  clever  to  be  great,  contributed 
more  than  any  other  writer  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury to  the  science  of  making  a  modem  play. 

In  order  that  the  attention  of  the  audience  may 
not  be  unduly  distracted  by  any  striking  effect, 
the  dramatist  must  always  prepare  for  such  an  ef- 
fect in  advance,  and  give  the  spectators  an  idea 
of  what  they  may  expect.  The  extraordinary  nose 
of  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  is  described  at  length  by 
Ragueneau  before  the  hero  comes  upon  the  stage. 
If  the  ugly-visaged  poet  should  enter  without  this 
preliminary  explanation,  the  whole  effect  would  be 
lost.  The  spectators  would  nudge  each  other  and 
whisper  half  aloud,  "  Look  at  his  nose !  What  is 
the  matter  with  his  face  ?  ",  and  would  be  less  than 
half  attentive  to  the  lines.  Before  Lady  Macbeth 
is  shown  walking  in  her  sleep  and  wringing  her 
hands  that  are  sullied  with  the  damned  spot  that 
all  great  Neptune's  ocean  could  not  wash  away, 
her  doctor  and  her  waiting  gentlewoman  are  sent 
to  tell  the  audience  of  her  "  slumbery  agitation." 
Thus,  at  the  proper  moment,  the  attention  is  fo- 
cused on  the  essential  point  instead  of  being  al- 
lowed to  lose  itself  in  wonder. 

A  logical  development  of  this  principle  leads  us 
to  the  axiom  that  a  dramatist  must  never  keep  a 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  99 

secret  from  his  audience,  although  this  is  one  of  the 
favorite  devices  of  the  novehst.  Let  us  suppose 
for  a  moment  that  the  spectators  were  not  let  into 
the  secret  of  Hero's  pretty  plot,  in  Much  Ado,  to 
bring  Beatrice  and  Benedick  together.  Suppose 
that,  like  the  heroine  and  the  hero,  they  were  led  to 
believe  that  each  was  truly  in  love  with  the  other. 
The  inevitable  revelation  of  this  error  would  pro- 
duce a  shock  of  surprise  that  would  utterly  scatter 
their  attention ;  and  while  they  were  busy  making 
over  their  former  conception  of  the  situation,  they 
would  have  no  eyes  nor  ears  for  what  was  going 
on  upon  the  stage.  In  a  novel,  the  true  character 
of  a  hypocrite  is  often  hidden  until  the  book  is 
nearly  through :  then,  when  the  revelation  comes, 
the  reader  has  plenty  of  time  to  think  back  and 
see  how  deftly  he  has  been  deceived.  But  in  a 
play,  a  rogue  must  be  known  to  be  a  rogue  at  his 
first  entrance.  The  other  characters  in  the  play 
may  be  kept  in  the  dark  until  the  last  act,  but  the 
audience  must  know  the  secret  all  the  time.  In 
fact,  any  situation  which  shows  a  character  suf- 
fering from  a  lack  of  such  knowledge  as  the  audi- 
ence holds  secure  always  produces  a  telling  effect 
upon  the  stage.  The  spectators  are  aware  of  lago's 
villainy  and  know  of  Desdcmona's  innocence. 
The  play  would  not  be  nearly  so  strong  if,  like 
Othello,  they  were  kept  ignorant  of  the  truth. 
In  order  to  economise  attention,  the  dramatist 


100   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

must  centre  his  interest  in  a  few  vividly  drawn  char- 
acters and  give  these  a  marked  preponderance  over 
the  other  parts.  Many  plays  have  failed  because 
of  over-elaborateness  of  detail.  Ben  Jonson's  com- 
edy of  Every  Man  in  His  Humour  would  at  present 
be  impossible  upon  the  stage,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  all  the  characters  are  so  carefully  drawn  that 
the  audience  would  not  know  in  whom  to  be  most 
interested.  The  plajj^  is  all  background  and  no 
foreground.  The  dramatist  fails  to  say,  "  Of  all 
these  sixteen  characters,  you  must  listen  most  at- 
tentively to  some  special  two  or  three  " ;  and,  in 
consequence,  the  piece  would  require  a  constant 
effort  of  attention  that  no  modern  audience  would 
be  willing  to  bestow.  Whatever  may  be  said  about 
the  disadvantages  of  the  so-called  "  star  system  " 
in  the  theatre,  the  fact  remains  that  the  greatest 
plays  of  the  world  —  (Edipus  King,  Hamlet,  As 
You  Like  It,  Tartufe,  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  —  have 
almost  always  been  what  are  called  "  star  plays." 
The  "  star  system  "  has  an  obvious  advantage  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  dramatist.  When  Ham- 
let enters,  the  spectators  know  that  they  must  look 
at  him;  and  their  attention  never  wavers  to  the 
minor  characters  upon  the  stage.  The  play  is  thus 
an  easy  one  to  follow :  attention  is  economised  and 
no  effect  is  lost. 

It  is  a  wise  plan  to  use  famihar  and  conventional 
types  to  fill  in  the  minor  parts  of  a  play.      The 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  lOl 

comic  valet,  the  pretty  and  witty  chambermaid,  the 
ingenue,  the  pathetic  old  friend  of  the  family,  are 
so  well  known  upon  the  stage  that  they  spare  the 
mental  energy  of  the  spectators  and  leave  them 
greater  vigor  of  attention  to  devote  to  the  more 
original  major  characters.  What  is  called  "  comic 
relief  "  has  a  similar  value  in  resting  the  attention 
of  the  audience.  After  the  spectators  have  been 
harrowed  by  Ophelia's  madness,  they  must  be  di- 
verted by  the  humor  of  the  grave-diggers  in  order 
that  their  susceptibilities  may  be  made  sufficiently 
fresh  for  the  solemn  scene  of  her  funeral. 

We  have  seen  that  any  sudden  shock  of  surprise 
should  be  avoided  in  the  theatre,  because  such  a 
shock  must  inevitabl}'  cause  a  scattering  of  atten- 
tion. It  often  happens  that  the  strongest  scenes 
of  a  play  require  the  use  of  some  physical  acces- 
sory,—  a  screen  in  The  School  for  Scandal,  a 
horse  in  Shenandoah,  a  perfumed  letter  in  Diplo- 
macy. In  all  such  cases,  the  spectators  must  be 
familiarised  beforehand  with  the  accessory  object, 
CO  that  when  the  climax  comes  they  may  devote  all 
of  their  attention  to  the  action  that  is  accomplished 
with  the  object  rather  than  to  the  object  itself. 
In  a  quarrel  scene,  an  actor  could  not  suddenly 
draw  a  concealed  weapon  in  order  to  threaten  his 
antagonist.  The  spectators  would  stop  to  ask 
themselves  how  he  happened  to  have  the  weapon 
by  him  without  their  knowing  it;  and  this  self-mut- 


102   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

tered  question  would  deaden  the  effect  of  the  scene. 
The  denouement  of  Ibsen's  Hedda  Gahler  requires 
that  the  two  chief  characters,  Eilert  Lovborg  and 
Hedda  Tesman,  should  die  of  pistol  wounds.  The 
pistols  that  are  to  be  used  in  the  catastrophe  are 
mentioned  and  shown  repeatedly  throughout  the 
early  and  middle  scenes  of  the  play ;  so  that  when 
the  last  act  comes,  the  audience  thinks  not  of  pistols, 
but  of  murder  and  suicide.  A  striking  illustration 
of  the  same  dramaturgic  principle  was  shown  in 
Mrs.  Fiske's  admirable  performance  of  this  play. 
The  climax  of  the  piece  comes  at  the  end  of  the 
penultimate  act,  when  Hedda  casts  into  the  fire  the 
manuscript  of  the  book  into  which  Eilert  has  put 
the  great  work  of  his  life.  The  stove  stands  ready 
at  the  left  of  the  stage;  but  when  the  culminating 
moment  comes,  the  spectators  must  be  made  to  for- 
get the  stove  in  their  horror  at  Hedda's  wickedness. 
They  must,  therefore,  be  made  familiar  with  the 
stove  in  the  early  part  of  the  act.  Ibsen  realised 
this,  and  arranged  that  Hedda  should  call  for  some 
wood  to  be  cast  upon  the  fire  at  the  beginning  of 
the  scene.  In  acting  this  incident,  Mrs.  Fiske 
kneeled  before  the  stove  in  the  very  attitude  that  she 
was  to  assume  later  on  when  she  committed  the 
manuscript  to  the  flames.  The  climax  gained 
greatly  in  emphasis  because  of  this  device  to  secure 
economy  of  attention  at  the  crucial  moment. 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  103 


in 

In  the  Autobiography  of  Joseph  Jefferson,  that 
humorous  and  human  and  instructive  book,  there  is 
a  passage  that  illustrates  admirably  the  bearing  of 
this  same  principle  of  economy  of  attention  upon 
the  actor's  art.  In  speaking  of  the  joint  perform- 
ances of  his  half-brother,  Charles  Burke,  and  the 
famous  actor-manager,  William  E.  Burton,  Jeffer- 
son says: 

It  was  a  rare  treat  to  see  Burton  and  Burke  in  the 
same  play:  they  acted  into  each  other's  hands  with  the  most 
perfect  skill;  there  was  no  striving  to  outdo  each  other. 
If  the  scene  required  that  for  a  time  one  should  be  promi- 
nent, the  other  would  become  the  background  of  the  picture, 
and  so  strengthen  the  general  effect;  by  this  method  they 
produced  a  perfectly  harmonious  work.  For  instance,  Burke 
would  remain  in  repose,  attentively  listening  while  Burton 
was  delivering  some  humorous  speech.  This  would  naturally 
act  as  a  spell  upon  the  audience,  who  became  by  this  treat- 
ment absorbed  in  what  Burton  was  saying,  and  having  got 
the  full  force  of  the  effect,  they  would  burst  forth  in 
laughter  or  applause;  then,  by  one  accord,  they  became 
silent,  intently  listening  to  Burke's  reply,  which  Burton  was 
now  strengthening  by  the  same  repose  and  attention.  I 
have  never  seen  this  element  in  acting  carried  so  far,  or 
accomplished  with  such  admirable  results,  not  even  upon  the 
French  stage,  and  I  am  convinced  that  the  importance  of 
it  in  reaching  the  best  dramatic  effects  cannot  be  too  highly 
estimated.  It  was  this  characteristic  feature  of  the  acting 
of  these  two  great  artists  that  always  set  the  audience  won- 
dering which  was  the  better.  The  truth  is  there  was  no 
"  better  "  about  the  matter.  They  were  not  horses  running 
a  race,  hut  artists  painting  a  picture;  it  was  not  in  their 


104   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

minds  which  should  win,  but  how  they  could,  by  their  joint 
efforts,  produce   a   perfect   work. 

I  am  afraid  that  this  excellent  method  of  team 
play  is  more  honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  ob- 
servance among  many  of  our  eminent  actors  of  the 
present  time.  When  Richard  Mansfield  played 
the  part  of  Brutus,  he  destroyed  the  nice  balance  of 
the  quarrel  scene  with  Cassius  by  attracting  all  of 
the  attention  of  the  audience  to  himself,  whereas  a 
right  reading  of  the  scene  would  demand  a  constant 
shifting  of  attention  from  one  hero  to  the  other. 
When  Joseph  Haworth  spoke  the  great  speech  of 
Cassius  beginning,  "  Come,  Antony,  and  young 
Octavius,  come !  ",  he  was  shrouded  in  the  shadow 
of  the  tent,  while  the  lime-light  fell  full  upon  the 
form  of  Rrutus.  This  arrangement  so  distracted 
the  audience  from  the  true  dramatic  value  of  the 
scene  that  neither  Mansfield's  heroic  carriage,  nor 
his  eye  like  Mars  to  threaten  and  command,  nor 
the  titanic  resonance  of  his  ventriloquial  utterance, 
could  atone  for  the  mischief  that  was  done. 

In  an  earlier  paragraph,  we  noticed  the  way  in 
which  the  "  star  system  "  may  be  used  to  advantage 
by  the  dramatist  to  economise  the  attention  of  the 
audience ;  but  it  will  be  observed,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  same  system  is  pernicious  in  its  influence 
upon  the  actor.  A  performer  who  is  accustomed 
to  the  centre  of  the  stage  often  finds  it  difficult  to 
keep  himself  in  the  background  at  moments  when 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  105 

the  scene  should  be  dominated  by  other,  and  some- 
times lesser,  actors.  Artistic  self-denial  is  one  of 
the  rarest  of  virtues.  This  is  the  reason  why  "  all- 
star  "  performances  are  almost  always  bad.  A 
famous  player  is  cast  for  a  minor  part;  and  in  his 
effort  to  exploit  his  talents,  he  violates  the  principle 
of  economy  of  attention  by  attracting  undue  notice 
to  a  subordinate  feature  of  the  performance. 
That's  villainous,  and  shows  a  most  pitiful  ambi- 
tion, as  Hamlet  truly  says.  A  rare  proof  of  the 
genius  of  the  great  Coquelin  was  given  by  his  per- 
formances of  Pere  Duval  and  the  Baron  Scarpia  in 
support  of  the  Camille  and  Tosca  of  Mme.  Sarah 
Bernhardt.  These  parts  are  both  subordinate; 
and,  in  pla^-ing  them,  Coquelin  so  far  succeeded 
in  obliterating  his  own  special  talents  that  he  never 
once  distracted  the  attention  of  the  audience  from 
the  acting  of  his  fellow  star.  This  was  an  artistic 
triumph  worthy  of  ranking  with  the  same  actor's 
sweeping  and  enthralling  performance  of  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac, —  perhaps  the  richest  acting  part  in 
the  history  of  the  theatre. 

A  story  is. told  of  how  Sir  Henry  Irving,  many 
years  ago,  played  the  role  of  Joseph  Surface  at  a 
special  revival  of  The  School  for  Scandal  in  which 
most  of  the  other  parts  were  filled  by  actors  and 
actresses  of  the  older  generation,  who  attempted  to 
recall  for  one  performance  the  triumphs  of  their 
youth.      Joseph  Surface  is  a  hypocrite  and  a  vil- 


106   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

lain;  but  the  youthful  grace  of  Mr.  Irving  so 
charmed  a  lady  in  the  stalls  that  she  said  she  "  could 
not  bear  to  see  those  old  unlovely  people  trying  to 
get  the  better  of  that  charming  young  man,  Mr. 
Joseph."  Something  must  have  been  wrong  with 
the  economy  of  her  attention. 

The  chief  reason  why  mannerisms  of  walk  or 
gesture  or  vocal  intonation  are  objectionable  in  an 
actor  is  that  they  distract  the  attention  of  the  audi- 
ence from  the  effect  he  is  producing  to  his  method 
of  producing  that  effect.  Mansfield's  peculiar 
manner  of  pumping  his  voice  from  his  diaphragm 
and  Irving's  corresponding  system  of  ejaculating 
his  phrases  through  his  nose  gave  to  the  reading 
of  those  great  artists  a  rich  metallic  resonance  that 
was  vibrant  with  effect ;  but  a  person  hearing  either 
of  those  actors  for  the  first  time  was  often  forced 
to  expend  so  much  of  his  attention  in  adjusting 
his  ears  to  the  novel  method  of  voice  production 
that  he  was  unable  for  many  minutes  to  fix  his  mind 
upon  the  more  important  business  of  the  play.  An 
actor  without  mannerisms,  like  the  late  Adolf  von 
Sonnenthal,  is  able  to  make  a  more  immediate  ap- 
peal. 

IV 

At  the  first  night  of  Mr.  E.  H.  Sothern's  Ham- 
let, in  the  fall  of  1900,  I  had  just  settled  back  in 
my  chair  to  listen  to  the  reading  of  the  soliloquy 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  107 

on  suicide,  when  a  woman  behind  me  whispered  to 
her  neighbor,  "  Oh  look !  There  are  two  fireplaces 
in  the  room !  "  My  attention  was  distracted,  and 
the  soliloquy  was  spoiled ;  but  the  fault  lay  with  the 
stage-manager  rather  than  with  the  woman  who 
spoke  the  disconcerting  words.  \f  Mr.  Sothern 
was  to  recite  his  soliloquy  gazing  dreamily  into  a 
fire  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  the  stage-manager 
should  have  known  enough  to  remove  the  large  fire- 
place on  the  right  of  the  stage. 

Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt,  when  she  acted  Hamlet 
in  London  in  1899,  introduced  a  novel  and  startling 
effect  in  the  closet  scene  between  the  hero  and  his 
mother.  On  the  wall,  as  usual,  hung  the  counter- 
feit presentments  of  two  brothers;  and  when  the 
time  came  for  the  ghost  of  buried  Denmark  to  ap- 
pear, he  was  suddenly  seen  standing  luminous  in 
the  picture-frame  which  had  contained  his  portrait. 
The  effect  was  so  unexpected  that  the  audience 
could  look  at  nothing  else,  and  thus  Hamlet  and 
the  queen  failed  to  get  their  proper  measure  of 
attention. 

These  two  instances  show  that  the  necessity  of 
economising  the  attention  of  an  audience  is  just  as 
important  to  the  stage-manager  as  it  is  to  the 
dramatist  and  the  actor.  In  the  main,  it  may  be 
said  that  any  unexpected  innovation,  any  device  of 
stage-management  tliat  Is  by  its  nature  startling, 
should   be   avoided   in    the   crucial   situations   of   a 


108   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

play.  Professor  Brander  Matthews  has  given  an 
interesting  illustration  of  this  principle  in  his  essay 
on  The  Art  of  the  Stage-Manager,  which  is  in- 
cluded in  his  volume  entitled  Inquiries  and  Opinions. 
He  says: 

The  stage-manager  must  ever  be  on  his  guard  against  the 
danger  of  sacrificing  the  major  to  the  minor,  and  of  letting 
some  little  effect  of  slight  value  in  itself  interfere  with  the 
true  interest  of  the  play  as  a  whole.  At  the  first  per- 
formance of  Mr.  Bronson  Howard's  Shenandoah,  the  open- 
ing act  of  which  ends  with  the  firing  of  the  shot  on  Sumter, 
there  was  a  wide  window  at  the  back  of  the  set,  so  that  the 
spectators  could  see  the  curving  flight  of  the  bomb  and  its 
final  explosion  above  the  doomed  fort.  Tlie  scenic  marvel 
had  cost  time  and  money  to  devise;  but  it  was  never  visible 
after  the  first  performance,  because  it  drew  attention  to 
itself,  as  a  mechanical  effect,  and  so  took  off  the  minds  of 
the  audience  from  the  Northern  lover  and  the  Southern  girl, 
the  Southern  lover  and  the  Northern  girl,  whose  loves  were 
suddenly  sundered  by  the  bursting  of  tliat  fatal  shell.  At 
the  second  performance,  the  spectators  did  not  see  the  shot, 
they  only  heard  the  dread  report;  and  they  were  free  to 
let  their  sympathy  go  forth  to  the  young  couples. 

Nowadays,  perhaps,  when  the  theatre-going  pub- 
lic is  more  used  to  elaborate  mechanism  on  the  stage, 
this  effect  might  be  attempted  without  danger.  It 
was  owing  to  its  novelty  at  the  time  that  the  device 
disrupted  the  attention  of  the  spectators. 

But  not  only  novel  and  startling  stage  effects 
should  be  avoided  in  the  main  dramatic  moments 
of  a  play.  Excessive  magnificence  and  elaborate- 
ness of  setting  are  just  as  distracting  to  the  at- 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  109 

tention  as  the  shock  of  a  new  and  strange  device. 
When  The  Merchant  of  Venice  was  revived  at 
Dalj's  Theatre  some  years  ago,  a  scenic  set  of  un- 
usual beauty  was  used  for  the  final  act.  The  gar- 
dens of  Portia's  palace  were  shadow^'  with  trees 
and  dreamy  with  the  dark  of  evening.  Slowlj^  in 
the  distance  a  round  and  yellow  moon  rose  rolling, 
its  beams  rippling  over  the  moving  waters  of  a 
lake.  There  was  a  murmur  of  approbation  in  the 
audience ;  and  that  murmur  was  just  loud  enough  to 
deaden  the  lyric  beauty  of  the  lines  in  which  Lo- 
renzo and  Jessica  gave  expression  to  the  spirit  of 
the  night.  The  audience  could  not  look  and  listen 
at  the  self-same  moment ;  and  Shakespeare  was  sac- 
rificed for  a  lime-light.  A  wise  stage-manager, 
when  he  uses  a  set  as  magnificent,  for  example,  as 
the  memorable  garden  scene  in  Miss  Viola  Allen's 
production  of  Tzcelfth  Night,  will  raise  his  cur- 
tain on  an  empty  stage,  to  let  the  audience  enjoy 
and  even  applaud  the  scenery  before  the  actors 
enter.  Then,  when  the  lines  are  spoken,  the  spec- 
tators are  ready  and  willing  to  lend  them  their 
ears. 

This  point  suggests  a  discussion  of  the  advisa- 
bility of  producing  Shakespeare  without  scenery, 
in  the  very  interesting  manner  that  has  been  em- 
ployed in  recent  seasons  by  Mr.  Ben  Greet's  com- 
pany of  players.  Leaving  aside  the  argument  that 
with  a  sceneless  stage  it  is  possible  to  perform  all 


no   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

the  incidents  of  the  play  in  their  original  order,  and 
thus  give  the  story  a  greater  narrative  continuity, 
it  may  also  be  maintained  that  with  a  bare  stage 
there  are  far  fewer  chances  of  dispersing  the  at- 
tention of  the  audience  by  attracting  it  to  insignifi- 
cant details  of  setting.  Certainly,  the  last  act  of 
the  Merchant  would  be  better  without  the  mechani- 
cal moonrise  than  with  it.  But,  unfortunately,  the 
same  argument  for  economy  of  attention  works 
also  in  the  contrary  direction.  We  have  been  so 
long  used  to  scenery  in  our  theatres  that  a  scene- 
less  production  requires  a  new  adjustment  of  our 
minds  to  accept  the  unwonted  convention ;  and  it 
may  readily  be  asserted  that  this  mental  adjust- 
ment disperses  more  attention  than  would  be  scat- 
tered by  elaborate  stage  effects.  At  Mr.  Greet's 
first  production  of  Twelfth  Night  in  New  York 
without  change  of  scene,  many  people  in  the  audi- 
ence could  be  heard  whispering  their  opinions  of 
the  experiment, —  a  fact  which  shows  that  their 
attention  was  not  fixed  entirely  upon  the  play  itself. 
On  the  whole,  it  would  probably  be  wisest  too  pro- 
duce Shakespeare  with  very  simple  scenery,  in 
order,  on  the  one  hand,  not  to  dim  the  imagination 
of  the  spectators  by  elaborate  magnificence  of  set- 
ting, and,  on  the  other,  not  to  distract  their  minds 
by  the  unaccustomed  conventions  of  a  sceneless 
stage. 

What  has  been  said  of  scenery  may  be  applied 


ECONOMY  OF  ATTENTION  111 

also  to  the  use  of  incidental  music.  So  soon  as  such 
music  becomes  obtrusive,  it  distracts  the  attention 
from  the  business  of  the  play :  and  it  cannot  be  in- 
sisted on  too  often  that  in  the  theatre  the  play's 
the  thing.  But  a  running  accompaniment  of 
music,  half-heard,  half-guessed,  that  moves  to  the 
mood  of  the  play,  now  swelling  to  a  climax,  now 
softening  to  a  hush,  may  do  much  toward  keeping 
the  audience  in  tune  with  the  emotional  significance 
of  the  action. 

A  perfect  theatrical  performance  is  the  rarest 
of  all  works  of  art.  I  have  seen  several  perfect 
statues  and  perfect  pictures ;  and  I  have  read  many 
perfect  poems :  but  I  have  never  seen  a  perfect  per- 
formance in  the  theatre.  I  doubt  if  such  a  per- 
formance has  ever  been  given,  except,  perhaps,  in 
ancient  Greece.  But  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  its 
effect  would  be.  It  would  rivet  the  attention 
throughout  upon  the  essential  purport  of  the  play ; 
it  would  proceed  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
without  the  slightest  distraction ;  and  it  would  con- 
vey its  message  simply  and  immediately,  like  the 
sky  at  sunrise  or  the  memorable  murmur  of  the  sea. 


VI 
EMPHASIS  IN  THE  DRAMA 

By  applying  the  negative  principle  of  economy 
of  attention,  the  dramatist  may,  as  we  have  noticed, 
prevent  his  auditors  at  any  moment  from  diverting 
their  attention  to  the  subsidiary  features  of  the 
scene ;  but  it  is  necessary  for  him  also  to  apply  the 
positive  principle  of  emphasis  in  order  to  force 
them  to  focus  their  attention  on  the  one  most  im- 
portant detail  of  the  matter  in  hand.  The  princi- 
ple of  emphasis,  which  is  applied  in  all  the  arts,  is 
the  principle  whereby  the  artist  contrives  to  throw 
into  vivid  relief  those  features  of  his  work  which 
incorporate  the  essence  of  the  thing  he  has  to  say, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  gathers  and  groups  within 
a  scarcely  noticed  background  those  other  features 
which  merely  contribute  in  a  minor  manner  to  the 
central  purpose  of  his  plan.  This  principle  is,  of 
course,  especially  important  in  the  acted  drama; 
and  it  may  therefore  be  profitable  to  examine  in 
detail  some  of  the  methods  which  dramatists  em- 
ploy to  make  their  points  effectively  and  bring  out 
the  salient  features  of  their  plays. 

It  is  obviously  easy  to  emphasise  by  position. 

112 


EMPHASIS  IX  THE  DRAMA  113 

The  last  moments  in  any  act  are  of  necessity  em- 
phatic because  they  are  the  last.  During  the  in- 
termission, the  minds  of  the  spectators  will  natu- 
rall}'  dwell  upon  the  scene  that  has  been  presented 
to  them  most  recently.  If  they  think  back  toward 
the  beginning  of  the  act,  they  must  first  think 
through  the  concluding  dialogue.  This  lends  to 
curtain-falls  a  special  importance  of  which  our 
modem  dramatists  never  fail  to  take  advantage. 

It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  this  simple 
form  of  emphasis  by  position  was  impossible  in 
the  Elizabethan  theatre  and  was  quite  unknown 
to  Shakespeare.  His  plays  were  produced  on  a 
platform  without  a  curtain ;  his  actors  had  to  make 
an  exit  at  the  end  of  every  scene;  and  usually  his 
plays  were  acted  from  beginning  to  end  without 
any  intermission.  It  was  therefore  impossible  for 
him  to  bring  his  acts  to  an  emphatic  close  by  a 
clever  curtain-fall.  We  have  gained  this  ad- 
vantage only  in  recent  times  because  of  the  im- 
proved ph^'sical  conditions  of  our  theatre. 

A  few  years  ago  it  was  customary  for  drama- 
tists to  end  every  act  with  a  bang  that  would  re- 
verberate in  the  ears  of  the  audience  throughout 
the  entr^-acte.  Recently  our  playwrights  have 
shown  a  tendency  toward  more  quiet  curtain-falls. 
The  exquisite  close  of  the  first  act  of  The  Admira- 
ble Crichton  was  merely  dreamfully  suggestive  of 
the  past  and  future  of  the  action ;  and  the  second 


Hi   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

act  ended  pictoriallj,  without  a  word.  But 
whether  a  curtain-fall  gains  its  effect  actively  or 
passively,  it  should,  if  possible,  sum  up  the  entire 
dramatic  accomplishment  of  the  act  that  it  con- 
cludes and  foreshadow  the  subsequent  progress  of 
the  play. 

Likewise,  the  first  moments  in  an  act  are  of  neces- 
sity emphatic  because  they  are  the  first.  After 
ttn  intermission,  the  audience  is  prepared  to  watch 
with  renewed  eagerness  the  resumption  of  the  ac- 
tion. The  close  of  the  third  act  of  Beau  BrumTnel 
makes  the  audience  long  expectantly  for  the  open- 
ing of  the  fourth ;  and  whatever  the  dramatist  may 
do  after  the  raising  of  the  curtain  will  be  empha- 
sised because  he  does  it  first.  An  exception  must 
be  made  of  the  opening  act  of  a  play.  A  drama- 
tist seldom  sets  forth  anything  of  vital  importance 
during  the  first  ten  minutes  of  his  piece,  because 
the  action  is  likely  to  be  interrupted  by  late-comers 
in  the  audience  and  other  distractions  incident  to 
the  early  hour.  But  after  an  intermission,  he  is 
surer  of  attention,  and  may  thrust  important  mat- 
ter into  the  openings  of  his  acts. 

The  last  position,  however,  is  more  potent  than 
the  first.  It  is  because  of  their  finality  that  exit 
speeches  are  emphatic.  It  has  become  customary 
in  the  theatre  to  applaud  a  prominent  actor  nearly 
every  time  he  leaves  the  stage;  and  this  custom  has 
made  it  necessary  for  the  dramatist  to  precede  an 


EMPHASIS  IN  THE  DRAMA  115 

exit  with  some  speech  or  action  important  enough 
to  justify  the  interruption.  Though  Shakespeare 
and  his  contemporaries  knew  nothing  of  the  cur- 
tain-fall, they  at  least  understood  fully  the  em- 
phasis of  exit  speeches.  They  even  tagged  them 
with  rhyme  to  give  them  greater  prominence.  An 
actor  likes  to  take  advantage  of  his  last  chance  to 
move  an  audience.  When  he  leaves  the  stage,  he 
wants  at  least  to  be  remembered. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  any  pause  in  the 
action  emphasises  by  position  the  speech  or  business 
that  immediatel}'  preceded  it.  This  is  true  not 
only  of  the  long  pause  at  the  end  of  an  act :  the 
point  is  illustrated  just  as  well  b}'  an  interruption 
of  the  play  in  mid-career,  like  Mrs.  Fiske's  omi- 
nous and  oppressive  minute  of  silence  in  the  last  act 
of  Hedda  Gnhler.  The  employment  of  pause  as 
an  aid  to  emphasis  is  of  especial  importance  in  the 
reading  of  lines. 

It  is  also  customary  in  the  drama  to  emphasise 
by  proportion.  More  time  is  given  to  significant 
scenes  than  to  dialogues  of  subsidiary  interest. 
The  strongest  characters  in  a  play  are  given  most 
to  say  and  do ;  and  the  extent  of  the  lines  of  the 
others  is  proportioned  to  their  importance  in  the 
action.  Hamlet  sa^'s  more  and  docs  more  than 
any  other  character  in  the  tragedy  in  which  he 
figures.  This  is  as  it  should  be ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  Polonius,  in  the  suiiif  play,  seems  to  receive 


116   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

greater  emphasis  by  proportion  than  he  really  de- 
serves. The  part  is  very  fully  written.  Polonius 
is  often  on  the  stage,  and  talks  incessantly  when- 
ever he  is  present;  but,  after  all,  he  is  a  man  of 
small  importance  and  fulfils  a  minor  purpose  in 
the  plot.  He  is,  therefore,  falsely  emphasised. 
That  is  why  the  part  of  Polonius  is  what  French 
actors  call  a  faux  hon  role, —  a  part  that  seems 
better  than  it  is. 

In  certain  special  cases,  it  is  advisable  to  em- 
phasise a  character  by  the  ironical  expedient  of 
inverse  proportion.  Tartufe  is  so  emphasised 
throughout  the  first  two  acts  of  the  play  that  bears 
his  name.  Although  he  is  withheld  from  the  stage 
until  the  second  scene  of  the  third  act,  so  much  is 
said  about  him  that  we  are  made  to  feel  fully  his 
sinister  dominance  over  the  household  of  Orgon ; 
and  at  his  first  appearance,  we  already  know  him 
better  than  we  know  any  of  the  other  characters. 
In  Victor  Hugo's  Marion  Delorme,  the  indomitable 
will  of  Cardinal  Richelieu  is  the  mainspring  of  the 
entire  action,  and  the  audience  is  led  to  feel  that  he 
may  at  any  moment  enter  upon  the  stage.  But 
he  is  withheld  until  the  very  final  moment  of  the 
drama,  and  even  then  is  merely  carried  mute  across 
the  scene  in  a  sedan-chair.  Similarly,  in  Paul 
Heyse's  Mary  of  Magdala,  the  supreme  person 
who  guides  and  controls  the  souls  of  all  the  strug- 
gling characters  is  never  introduced  upon  the  scene, 


EMPHASIS  IN  THE  DRAMA  117 

but  is  suggested  merely  through  his  effect  on  Mary, 
Judas,  and  the  other  visible  figures  in  the  action. 

One  of  the  easiest  means  of  emphasis  is  the  use 
of  repetition ;  and  this  is  a  favorite  device  with 
Henrik  Ibsen,  Certain  catch-words,  which  incor- 
porate a  recuri'ent  mood  of  character  or  situation, 
are  repeated  over  and  over  again  throughout  the 
course  of  his  dialogue.  The  result  is  often  similar 
to  that  attained  by  Wagner,  in  his  music-dramas, 
through  the  iteration  of  a  leit-motiv.  Thus  in 
Rosmersholm,  whenever  the  action  takes  a  turn  that 
foreshadows  the  tragic  catastrophe,  allusion  is 
made  to  the  weird  symbol  of  "  white  horses."  Sim- 
ilarly, in  Hedda  Gahler  —  to  take  another  instance 
—  the  emphasis  of  repetition  is  flung  on  certain 
leading  phrases, —  "  Fancy  that,  Hedda !  " 
"  Wavy-haired  Thea,"  "  Vine-leaves  in  his  hair,'* 
and  "  People  don't  do  such  things !  " 

Another  obvious  means  of  emphasis  in  the  drama 
is  the  use  of  antithesis, —  an  expedient  employed 
in  every  art.  The  design  of  a  play  is  not  so  much 
to  expound  characters  as  to  contrast  them.  Peo- 
ple of  varied  views  and  opposing  aims  come  nobly 
to  the  grapi)lc  In  a  struggle  that  vitally  concerns 
them ;  and  the  tensity  of  the  struggle  will  be  aug- 
mented if  the  difference  between  the  characters  is 
marked.  The  comedies  of  Ben  Jonson,  which  held 
the  stage  for  two  centuries  after  their  author's 
death,  owed  their  success  largely  to  the  fact  that 


118   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

they  presented  a  constant  contrast  of  mutually 
foiling  personalities.  But  the  expedient  of  antith- 
esis is  most  effectively  employed  in  the  balance 
of  scene  against  scene.  What  is  known  as  "  comic 
relief  "  is  introduced  in  various  plays,  not  only, 
as  the  phrase  suggests,  to  rest  the  sensibilities  of 
the  audience,  but  also  to  emphasise  the  solemn 
scenes  that  come  before  and  after  it.  It  is  for 
this  purpose  that  Shakespeare,  in  Macbeth,  intro- 
duces a  low-comic  soliloquy  into  the  midst  of  a 
murder  scene.  Hamlet's  ranting  over  the  grave 
of  Ophelia  is  made  more  emphatic  by  antithesis 
with  the  foolish  banter  that  precedes  it. 

This  contrast  of  mood  between  scene  and  scene 
was  unknown  in  ancient  plays  and  in  the  imitations 
of  them  that  flourished  in  the  first  great  period  of 
the  French  tragic  stage.  Although  the  ancient 
drama  frequently  violated  the  three  unities  of  ac- 
tion, time,  and  place,  it  always  preserved  a  fourth 
unity,  which  we  may  call  unity  of  mood.  It  re- 
mained for  the  Spaniards  and  the  Elizabethan 
English  to  grasp  the  dramatic  value  of  the  great 
antithesis  between  the  humorous  and  the  serious, 
the  grotesque  and  the  sublime,  and  to  pass  it  on 
through  Victor  Hugo  to  the  contemporary  theatre. 

A  further  means  of  emphasis  is,  of  course,  the 
use  of  climax.  This  principle  is  at  the  basis  of 
the  familiar  method  of  working  up  an  entrance. 
My    lady's   coach   is   heard   clattering   behind   the 


EMPHASIS  IN  THE  DRAMA  119 

scenes.  A  servant  rushes  to  the  window  and  tells 
us  that  his  mistress  is  alighting.  There  is  a  ring 
at  the  entrance;  we  hear  the  sound  of  footsteps 
in  the  hall.  At  last  the  door  is  thrown  open,  and 
my  lady  enters,  greeted  by  a  salvo  of  applause. 

A  first  entrance  unannounced  is  rarely  seen  upon 
the  modern  stage.  Shakespeare's  King  John 
opens  very  simply.  The  stage  direction  reads, 
"  Enter  King  John,  Queen  Elinor,  Pembroke,  Es- 
sex, Salisbury  and  others,  with  Chatillon  " ;  and 
then  the  king  speaks  the  opening  line  of  the  play. 
Yet  when  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree  revived  this 
drama  at  Her  Majesty's  Theatre  in  1899,  he  de- 
vised an  elaborate  opening  to  give  a  climacteric  ef- 
fect to  the  entrance  of  the  king.  The  curtain  rose 
upon  a  vaulted  room  of  state,  impressive  in  its  bare 
magnificence.  A  throne  was  set  upon  a  dais  to  the 
left,  and  several  noblemen  in  splendid  costumes 
were  lingering  about  the  room.  At  the  back  was 
a  Norman  corridor  approached  by  a  flight  of  lofty 
steps  which  led  upward  from  the  level  of  the  stage. 
There  was  a  peal  of  trumpets  from  without,  and 
soon  to  a  stately  music  the  royal  guards  marched 
upon  the  scene.  They  were  followed  by  ladies 
with  gorgeous  dresses  sweeping  away  in  long 
trains  borne  by  pretty  pages,  and  great  lords  walk- 
ing with  dignity  to  the  music  of  the  regal  meas- 
ure. At  last  Mr.  Tree  appeared  and  stood  for  a 
moment  at  the  top  of  the  steps,  every  inch  a  king. 


120   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Then  he  strode  majestically  to  the  dais,  ascended  to 
the  throne,  and  turning  about  with  measured  ma- 
jesty spoke  the  first  line  of  the  play,  some  minutes 
after  the  raising  of  the  curtain. 

But  not  only  in  the  details  of  a  drama  is  the 
use  of  climax  necessary.  The  whole  action  should 
sweep  upward  in  intensity  until  the  highest  point  is 
reached.  In  the  Shakespearean  drama  the  high- 
est point  came  somewhat  early  in  the  piece,  usu- 
ally in  the  third  act  of  the  five  that  Shakespeare 
wrote ;  but  in  contemporary  plays  the  climax  is 
almost  always  placed  at  the  end  of  the  penultimate 
act, —  the  fourth  act  if  there  are  five,  and  the 
third  act  if  there  are  four.  Nowadays  the  four- 
act  form  with  a  strong  climax  at  the  end  of  the 
third  act  seems  to  be  most  often  used.  This  is 
the  form,  for  instance,  of  Ibsen's  Hedda  Gabler, 
of  Mr.  Jones's  Mrs.  Doners  Defense,  and  of  Sir 
Arthur  Pinero's  The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  The 
Notorious  Mrs.  Ebbsmith,  and  The  Gay  Lord 
Quex.  Eaeh  begins  with  an  act  of  exposition,  fol- 
lowed by  an  act  of  rising  interest.  Then  the  whole 
action  of  the  play  rushes  upward  toward  the  cur- 
tain-fall of  the  third  act,  after  which  an  act  is 
used  to  bring  the  play  to  a  terrible  or  a  happy 
conclusion. 

A  less  familiar  means  of  emphasis  is  that  which 
owes  its  origin  to  surprise.  This  expedient  must 
be  used  with  great  delicacy,  because  a  sudden  and 


EMPHASIS  IN  THE  DRAMA  121 

startling  shock  of  surprise  is  likely  to  diseconomise 
the  attention  of  the  spectators  and  flurry  them 
out  of  a  sane  conception  of  the  scene.  But  if  a 
moment  of  surprise  has  been  carefully  led  up  to 
by  anticipatory  suggestion,  it  may  be  used  to  throw 
into  sharp  and  sudden  relief  an  important  point  in 
the  play.  No  one  knows  that  Cyrano  de  Bergerac 
is  on  the  stage  until  he  rises  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowd  in  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne  and  shakes  his 
cane  at  Montfleur}^  When  Sir  Herbert  Tree 
played  D'Artagnan  in  The  MusTceteers,  he  emerged 
suddenly  in  the  midst  of  a  scene  from  a  suit  of  old 
armor  standing  monumental  at  the  back  of  the 
stage, —  a  deus  ex  machind  to  dominate  the  situa- 
tion. American  playgoers  will  remember  the  dis- 
guise of  Sherlock  Holmes  in  the  last  act  of  Mr. 
Gillette's  admirable  melodrama.  The  appearance 
of  the  ghost  in  the  closet  scene  of  Hamlet  is  made 
emphatic  by  its  unexpectedness. 

But  perhaps  the  most  effective  form  of  em- 
phasis in  the  drama  is  emphasis  by  suspense. 
Wilkie  Collinf,  who  with  all  his  faults  as  a  critic 
of  life  remair  5  the  most  skilful  maker  of  plots  in 
English  fictioi!,  used  to  say  that  the  secret  of  hold- 
ing the  attention  of  one's  readers  lay  in  the  ability 
to  do  three  th'ngs :  "  Make  'em  laugh ;  make  'em 
weep ;  make  'em  wait."  There  is  no  use  in  making 
an  audience  wait,  however,  unless  you  first  give 
them   an   inkling  of   what  they   are   waiting    for. 


122   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

The  dramatist  must  play  with  his  spectators  as  we 
play  with  a  kitten  when  we  trail  a  ball  of  yam  be- 
fore its  eyes,  only  to  snatch  it  away  just  as  the 
kitten  leaps  for  it. 

This  method  of  emphasising  by  suspense  gives 
force  to  what  are  known  technically  as  the  scenes  a 
fa'ire  of  a  drama.  A  scene  a  faire  —  the  phrase 
was  devised  by  Francisque  Sarcey  —  is  a  scene 
late  in  a  play  that  is  demanded  absolutely  by  the 
previous  progress  of  the  plot.  The  audience 
knows  that  the  scene  must  come  sooner  or  later, 
and  if  the  element  of  suspense  be  ably  managed,  is 
made  to  long  for  it  some  time  before  it  comes.  In 
Hamlet,  for  instance,  the  killing  of  the  king  by 
the  hero  is  of  course  a  scene  a  faire.  The  audi- 
ence knows  before  the  first  act  is  over  that  such  a 
scene  is  surely  coming.  When  the  king  is  caught 
praying  in  his  closet  and  Hamlet  stands  over  him 
with  naked  sword,  the  spectators  think  at  last  that 
the  scene  a  faire  has  arrived;  but  Shakespeare 
"  makes  'em  wait "  for  two  acts  more,  until  the 
very  ending  of  the  play. 

In  comedy  the  commonest  scenes  a  faire  are 
love  scenes  that  the  audience  anticipates  and  longs 
to  see.  Perhaps  the  young  folks  are  frequently 
on  the  stage,  but  the  desired  scene  is  prevented  by 
the  presence  of  other  characters.  Only  after  many 
movements  are  the  lovers  left  alone;  and  when  at 


EMPHASIS  IN  THE  DRAMA  12S 

last  the  pretty  moment  comes,  the  audience  glows 
with  long-awaited  enjoyment. 

It  is  always  dangerous  for  a  dramatist  to  omit 
a  scene  a  faire, —  to  raise  in  the  minds  of  his  audi- 
ence an  expectation  that  is  never  satisfied.  Slieri- 
dan  did  this  in  The  School  for  Scandal  when  he 
failed  to  introduce  a  love  scene  between  Charles 
and  JMaria,  and  Mr.  Jones  did  it  in  Whitewashing 
Julia  when  he  made  the  audience  expect  through- 
out the  play  a  revelation  of  the  truth  about  the 
puff-box  and  then  left  them  disappointed  in  the 
end.  But  these  cases  are  exceptional.  In  gen- 
eral it  may  be  said  that  an  unsatisfied  suspense  is  no 
suspense  at  all. 

One  of  the  most  effective  instances  of  suspense 
in  the  modern  drama  is  offered  in  the  opening  of 
John  Gabriel  Borkman,  one  of  Ibsen's  later  plays. 
Many  years  before  the  drama  opens,  the  hero  has 
been  sent  to  jail  for  misusing  the  funds  of  a  bank 
of  which  he  was  director.  After  five  years  of  im- 
prisonment, he  has  been  released,  eight  years  before 
the  opening  of  the  play.  During  these  eight  3'ears, 
he  has  lived  alone  in  the  great  gallery  of  his  house, 
never  going  forth  even  in  the  dark  of  night,  and 
seeing  only  two  people  who  come  to  call  upon  him. 
One  of  these,  a  young  girl,  sometimes  plays  for 
him  on  the  piano  while  he  paces  moodily  up  and 
down  the  gallery.     These  facts  are  expounded  to 


124   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

the  audience  in  a  dialogue  between  Mrs.  Borkman 
and  her  sister  that  takes  place  in  a  lower  room  be- 
low Borknian's  quarters ;  and  all  the  while,  in  the 
pauses  of  the  conversation,  the  hero  is  heard  walk- 
ing overhead,  pacing  incessantly  up  and  down.  As 
the  act  advances,  the  audience  expects  at  any  mo- 
ment that  the  hero  will  appear.  The  front  door 
is  thrown  open ;  two  minor  characters  enter ;  and 
still  Borkman  is  heard  walking  up  and  down. 
There  is  more  talk  about  him  on  the  stage;  the 
act  is  far  advanced,  and  soon  it  seems  that  he  must 
show  himself.  From  the  upper  room  is  heard  the 
music  of  the  Dance  of  Death  that  his  young  girl 
friend  is  playing  for  him.  Now  to  the  dismal 
measures  of  the  dance  the  dialogue  on  the  stage 
swells  to  a  climax.  Borkman  is  still  heard  pacing 
in  the  gallery.  And  the  curtain  falls.  Ten  min- 
utes later  the  raising  of  the  curtain  discloses  John 
Gabriel  Borkman  standing  with  his  hands  behind 
his  back,  looking  at  the  girl  who  has  been  playing 
for  him.  The  moment  is  trebly  emphatic, —  by 
position  at  the  opening  of  an  act,  by  surprise, 
and  most  of  all  by  suspense.  When  the  hero  is  at 
last  discovered,  the  audience  looks  at  him. 

Of  course  there  are  many  minor  means  of  em- 
phasis in  the  theatre,  but  most  of  these  are  artificial 
and  mechanical.  The  proverbial  lime-light  is  one 
of  the  most  effective.  The  intensity  of  the  dream 
scene  in  Sir  Henry  Irving's  performance  of  The 


EMPHASIS  IN  THE  DRAMA  125 

Bells  was  due  largely  to  the  way  in  which  the  single 
figure  of  Mathias  was  silhouetted  by  a  ray  of  light 
against  a  shadowy  and  inscrutable  background 
ominous  with  voices. 

In  this  materialistic  age,  actors  even  resort  to 
blandishments  of  costume  to  give  their  parts  a 
special  emphasis.  Our  leading  ladies  are  more 
richl}'  clad  than  the  minor  members  of  their  com- 
panies. Even  the  great  Mansfield  resorted  in  his 
performance  of  Brutus  to  the  indefensible  expedi- 
ent of  changing  his  costume  act  by  act  and  dress- 
ing always  in  exquisite  and  subtle  colors,  while 
the  other  Romans,  Cassius  included,  wore  the  same 
togas  of  unaffected  white  throughout  the  play. 
This  was  a  fault  in  emphasis. 

A  novel  and  interesting  device  of  emphasis  in 
stage-direction  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Forbes-Rob- 
ertson in  his  production  of  The  Passing  of  the 
Third  Floor  Bach.  This  dramatic  parable  by  Mr. 
Jerome  K.  Jerome  deals  with  the  moral  regenera- 
tion of  eleven  people,  who  are  living  in  a  Blooms- 
bury  boarding-house,  through  the  personal  influ- 
ence of  a  Passer-by,  who  is  the  Spirit  of  Love 
incarnate;  and  this  eff'ect  is  accomplished  in  a  suc- 
cession of  dialogues,  in  which  the  Stranger  talks 
at  kngtli  with  one  boarder  after  another.  It  is 
necessary,  for  reasons  of  reality,  that  in  each  of 
the  dialogues  the  Passer-by  and  his  interlocutor 
should  be  seated  at  their  ease.     It  is  also  necessary. 


126   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

for  reasons  of  effectiveness  in  presentation,  that 
the  faces  of  both  parties  to  the  conversation  should 
be  kept  clearly'  visible  to  the  audience.  In  actual 
life,  the  two  people  Avould  most  naturally  sit  before 
a  fire ;  but  if  a  fireplace  should  be  set  in  either  the 
right  or  the  left  wall  of  the  stage  and  two  actors 
should  be  seated  in  front  of  it,  the  face  of  one  of 
them  would  be  obscured  from  the  audience.  The 
producer  therefore  adopted  the  expedient  of  imag- 
ining a  fireplace  in  the  fourth  wall  of  the  room, — 
the  wall  that  is  supposed  to  stretch  across  the  stage 
at  the  line  of  the  footlights.  A  red-glow  from 
the  central  lamps  of  the  string  of  footlights  was 
cast  up  over  a  brass  railing  such  as  usually  bounds 
a  hearth,  and  behind  this,  far  forward  in  ^the  di- 
rect centre  of  the  stage,  two  chairs  were  drawn  up 
for  the  use  of  the  actors.  The  right  wall  showed 
a  window  opening  on  the  street,  the  rear  wall  a 
door  opening  on  an  entrance  hall,  and  the  left  wall 
a  door  opening  on  a  room  adjacent ;  and  in  none  of 
these  could  the  fireplace  have  been  logically  set. 
The  unusual  device  of  stage-direction,  therefore, 
contributed  to  the  verisimilitude  of  the  set  as  well 
as  to  the  convenience  of  the  action.  The  experi- 
ment was  successful  for  the  purposes  of  this  par- 
ticular piece ;  it  did  not  seem  to  disrupt  the  atten- 
tion of  the  audience;  and  the  question,  therefore, 
is  suggested  whether  it  might  not,  in  many  other 
plays,  be  advantageous  to  make  imaginary  use  of 
the  invisible  fourth  wall. 


VII 
THE  FOUR  LEADING  TYPES  OF  DRAMA 

I.       TEAGEDY     AKD     MELODRAMA 

Tkagedy  and  melodrama  are  alike  in  this, —  that 
each  exhibits  a  set  of  characters  struggling  vainly 
to  avert  a  predetermined  doom ;  but  in  this  essential 
point  thej  differ, —  that  whereas  the  characters 
in  melodrama  are  drifted  to  disaster  in  spite  of 
themselves,  the  characters  in  tragedy  go  down  to 
destruction  because  of  themselves.  In  tragedy  the 
characters  determine  and  control  the  plot ;  in  melo- 
drama the  plot  determines  and  controls  the  charac- 
ters. The  writer  of  melodrama  initially  imagines 
a  stirring  train  of  incidents,  interesting  and  excit- 
ing in  themselves,  and  af  tenvard  invents  such  char- 
acters as  will  readily  accept  the  destiny  that  he  has 
foreordained  for  them.  The  writer  of  tragedy, 
on  the  other  hand,  initially  imagines  certain  char- 
acters inherently  predestined  to  destruction  because 
of  what  they  are,  and  afterward  invents  such  in- 
cidents as  will  reasonably  result  from  what  is  wrong 
within  them. 

It  must  be  recognised  at  once  that  each  of  these 

127 


128   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

is  a  legitimate  method  for  planning  a  serious  play, 
and  that  by  following  either  the  one  or  the  other, 
it  is  possible  to  make  a  truthful  representation  of 
life.  For  the  ruinous  events  of  life  itself  divide 
themselves  into  two  classes  —  the  melodramatic  and 
the  tragic  —  according  as  the  element  of  chance 
or  the  element  of  character  shows  the  upper  hand 
in  them.  It  would  be  melodramatic  for  a  man  to 
slip  by  accident  into  the  Whirlpool  Rapids  and  be 
drowned;  but  the  drowning  of  Captain  Webb  in 
that  tossing  torrent  was  tragic,  because  his  ambi- 
tion for  preeminence  as  a  swimmer  bore  evermore 
within  itself  the  latent  possibility  of  his  failing  in 
an  uttermost  stupendous  effort. 

As  Stevenson  has  said,  in  his  Gossip  on  Romance, 
"  The  pleasure  that  we  take  in  life  is  of  two 
sorts, —  the  active  and  the  passive.  Now  we  are 
conscious  of  a  great  command  over  our  destiny; 
anon  we  are  lifted  up  by  circumstance,  as  by  a 
breaking  wave,  and  dashed  we  know  not  how  into 
the  future."  A  good  deal  of  what  happens  to  us 
is  brought  upon  us  by  the  fact  of  what  we  are; 
the  rest  is  drifted  to  us,  uninvited,  undeserved, 
upon  the  tides  of  chance.  When  disasters  over- 
whelm us,  the  fault  is  sometimes  in  ourselves,  but 
at  other  times  is  merely  in  our  stars.  Because  so 
much  of  life  is  casual  rather  than  causal,  the  thea- 
tre (whose  purpose  is  to  represent  life  truly)  must 
always  rely  on  melodrama  as  the  most  natural  and 


FOUR  LEADING  TYPES  OF  DRAMA      129 

effective  type  of  art  for  exhibiting  some  of  its 
most  interesting  phases.  There  is  therefore  no 
logical  reason  whatsoever  that  melodrama  should 
be  held  in  disrepute,  even  by  the  most  fastidious  of 
critics. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  evident  that  trag- 
edy is  inherently  a  higher  type  of  art.  The  melo- 
dramatist  exhibits  merely  what  may  happen ;  the 
tragedist  exhibits  what  must  happen.  All  that  we 
ask  of  the  author  of  melodrama  is  a  momentary 
plausibility'.  Provided  that  his  plot  be  not  im- 
possible, no  limits  are  imposed  on  his  invention  of 
mere  incident :  even  his  characters  will  not  give 
him  pause,  since  they  themselves  have  been  fash- 
ioned to  fit  the  action.  But  of  the  author  of  trag- 
edy we  demand  an  unquestionable  inevitability : 
nothing  may  happen  in  his  play  which  is  not  a  log- 
ical result  of  the  nature  of  his  characters.  Of  the 
melodramatist  we  require  merely  the  negative  virtue 
that  he  shall  not  lie :  of  the  tragedist  we  require  the 
positive  virtue  that  he  shall  reveal  some  phase  of 
the  absolute,  eternal  Truth. 

The  vast  difference  between  merely  saying  some- 
thing that  is  true  and  really  saying  something  that 
gives  a  glimpse  of  the  august  and  all-controlling 
Truth  may  be  suggested  by  a  verbal  illustration. 
Suppose  that,  upon  an  evening  which  at  sunset  has 
been  threatened  with  a  storm,  I  observe  the  sky  at 
midnight  to  be  cloudless,  and  say,  "  The  stars  are 


ISO   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

shining  still."  Assuredly  I  shall  be  telling  some- 
thing that  is  true ;  but  I  shall  not  be  giving  in  any 
way  a  revelation  of  the  absolute.  Consider  now 
the  aspect  of  this  very  same  remark,  as  it  occurs  in 
the  fourth  act  of  John  Webster's  tragedy,  The 
Duchess  of  Malfi.  The  Duchess,  overwhelmed  with 
despair,  is  talking  to  Bosola: 

Duchess.  I'll  go  pray;  — 

No,  I'll  go  curse. 
Bosola  O,  fie! 

Duchess.  I  could  curse  the  stars. 

Bosola.     O,  fearful. 
Duchess.     And   those   three   smiling   seasons   of   the  year 

Into  a  Russian  winter:  nay,  the  world 

To  its  first  chaos. 
Bosola.  Look  you,  the  stars  shine  still. 

This  brief  sentence,  which  in  the  former  instance 
was  comparatively  meaningless,  here  suddenly 
flashes  on  the  awed  imagination  a  vista  of  irrevoca- 
ble law. 

A  similar  difference  exists  between  the  august 
Truth  of  tragedy  and  the  less  revelatory  truthful- 
ness of  melodrama.  To  understand  and  to  ex- 
pound the  laws  of  life  is  a  loftier  task  than  merely 
to  avoid  misrepresenting  them.  For  this  reason, 
though  melodrama  has  always  abounded,  true  trag- 
edy has  always  been  extremely  rare.  Nearly  all 
the  tragic  plays  in  the  history  of  the  theatre  have 
descended  at  certain  moments  into  melodrama. 
Shakespeare's  final  version  of  Hamlet  stands  nearly 


FOUR  LEADING  TYPES  OF  DRAMA      131 

on  the  highest  level;  but  here  and  there  it  still  ex- 
hibits traces  of  that  preexistent  melodrama  of  the 
school  of  Thomas  Kyd  from  which  it  was  derived. 
Sophocles  is  trul}-  tragic,  because  he  affords  a  reve- 
lation of  the  absolute;  but  Euripides  is  for  the 
most  part  melodramatic,  because  he  contents  him- 
self with  imagining  and  projecting  the  merely 
possible.  In  our  own  age,  Ibsen  is  the  only  au- 
thor who,  consistent^,  from  play  to  play,  com- 
mands catastrophes  which  are  not  only  plausible 
but  unavoidable.  It  is  not  strange,  however,  that 
the  entire  history  of  the  drama  should  disclose  very 
few  masters  of  the  tragic;  for  to  envisage  the  in- 
evitable is  to  look  within  the  very  mind  of  God. 

II.        COMEDY    AND    FARCE 

If  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  merry-mooded 
drama,  we  shall  discern  a  similar  distinction  be- 
tween comedy  and  farce.  A  comedy  is  a  humorous 
play  in  which  the  actors  dominate  the  action ;  a 
farce  is  a  humorous  play  in  which  the  action  domi- 
nates the  actors.  Pure  comedy  is  the  rarest  of  all 
types  of  drama ;  because  characters  strong  enough 
to  determine  and  control  a  humorous  plot  almost 
always  insist  on  fighting  out  their  struggle  to  a 
serious  issue,  and  thereby  lift  the  action  above  the 
comic  level.  On  the  other  hand,  unless  the  charac- 
ters thus  stiffen  in  their  purposes,  they  usually 
allow  the  play  to  lapse  to  farce.     Pure  comedies. 


132   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

however,  have  now  and  then  been  fashioned,  with- 
out admixture  either  of  farce  or  of  serious  drama ; 
and  of  these  Le  Misanthrope  of  Mohere  may  be 
taken  as  a  standard  example.  The  work  of  the 
same  master  also  affords  many  examples  of  pure 
farce,  which  never  rises  into  comedy, —  for  in- 
stance, Le  Medec'in  Malgre  Lui.  Shakespeare 
nearly  always  associated  the  two  types  within  the 
compass  of  a  single  humorous  play,  using  comedy 
for  his  major  plot  and  farce  for  his  subsidiary  inci- 
dents. Farce  is  decidedly  the  most  irresponsible  Y 
of  all  the  types  of  drama.  The  plot  exists  for  its 
own  sake,  and  the  dramatist  need  fulfil  only  two 
requirements  in  devising  it :  —  first,  he  must  be 
funny,  and  second,  he  must  persuade  his  audience 
to  accept  his  situations  at  least  for  the  moment 
while  they  are  being  enacted.  Beyond  this  latter 
requisite,  he  suffers  no  subservience  to  plausibility. 
Since  he  needs  to  be  believed  only  for  the  moment, 
he  is  not  obliged  to  limit  himself  to  possibilities. 
But  to  compose  a  true  comedy  is  a  very  serious 
task ;  for  in  comedy  the  action  must  be  not  only  pos- 
sible and  plausible,  but  must  be  a  necessary  result 
of  the  nature  of  the  characters.  This  is  the  reason 
why  The  School  for  Scandal  is  a  greater  accom- 
plishment than  The  Rivals,  though  the  latter  play 
is  fully  as  funny  as  the  former.  The  one  is 
comedy,  and  the  other  merely  farce. 


VIII 

THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA 

The  modern  social  drama  —  or  the  problem 
play,  as  it  is  popularly  called  —  did  not  come  into 
existence  till  the  fourth  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century ;  but  in  less  than  eighty  years  it  has  shown 
itself  to  be  the  fittest  expression  in  dramaturgic 
terms  of  the  spirit  of  the  present  age;  and  it  is 
therefore  being  written,  to  the  exclusion  of  almost 
every  other  type,  by  nearly  all  the  contemporary 
dramatists  of  international  importance.  This  type 
of  drama,  currently  prevailing,  is  being  continually 
impugned  by  a  certain  set  of  critics,  and  by  an- 
other set  continually  defended.  In  especial,  the 
morality  of  the  modern  social  drama  has  been  a 
theme  for  bitter  conflict;  and  critics  have  been  so 
busy  calling  Ibsen  a  corrupter  of  the  mind  or  a 
great  ethical  teacher  that  they  have  not  found 
leisure  to  consider  the  more  general  and  less  con- 
tentious questions  of  what  the  modern  social  drama 
really  is,  and  of  precisely  on  what  ground  its 
morality  should  be  determined.  It  may  be  profit- 
able, therefore,  to  stand  aloof  from  such  discus- 
sion for  a  moment,  in  order  to  inquire  calmly  what 
it  is  all  about. 

133 


134   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 


Although  the  modern  social  drama  is  sometimes 
comic  in  its  mood  —  The  Gay  Lord  Quex,  for  in- 
stance —  its  main  development  has  been  upon  the 
serious  side;  and  it  may  be  criticised  most  clearly 
as  a  modern  type  of  tragedy.  In  order,  therefore, 
to  understand  its  essential  qualities,  we  must  first 
consider  somewhat  carefully  the  nature  of  tragedy 
in  general.  The  theme  of  all  drama  is,  of  course, 
a  struggle  of  human  wills ;  and  the  special  theme 
of  tragic  drama  is  a  struggle  necessarily  fore- 
doomed to  failure  because  the  individual  human 
will  is  pitted  against  opposing  forces  stronger  than 
itself.  Tragedy  presents  the  spectacle  of  a  human 
being  shattering  himself  against  insuperable  ob- 
stacles. Thereby  it  awakens  pity,  because  the 
hero  cannot  win,  and  terror,  because  the  forces 
arrayed  against  him  cannot  lose. 

If  we  rapidly  review  the  history  of  tragedy,  we 
shall  see  that  three  types,  and  only  three,  have  thus 
far  been  devised;  and  these  types  are  to  be  distin- 
guished according  to  the  nature  of  the  forces  set 
in  opposition  to  the  wills  of  the  characters.  In 
other  words,  the  dramatic  imagination  of  all  hu- 
manity has  thus  far  been  able  to  conceive  only 
three  types  of  struggle  which  are  necessarily  fore- 
doomed to  failure, —  only  three  different  varieties 
of  forces  so  strong  as  to  defeat  inevitably  any  in- 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        135 

dividual  human  being  who  comes  into  conflict  with 
them.  The  first  of  these  types  was  discovered  by 
-^schylus  and  perfected  by  Sophocles;  the  second 
was  discovered  by  Christopher  Marlowe  and  per- 
fected by  Shakespeare;  and  the  third  was  discov- 
ered by  Victor  Hugo  and  perfected  by  Ibsen. 

The  first  type,  which  is  represented  by  Greek 
tragedj',  displays  the  individual  in  conflict  with 
Fate,  an  inscrutable  power  dominating  alike  the 
actions  of  men  and  of  gods.  It  is  the  God  of  the 
gods, —  the  destiny  of  which  they  are  the  instru- 
ments and  ministers.  Through  irreverence, 
through  vainglory,  through  disobedience,  through 
weakness,  the  tragic  hero  becomes  entangled  in  the 
meshes  that  Fate  sets  for  the  unwary ;  he  struggles 
and  struggles  to  get  free,  but  his  efforts  are  neces- 
sarily of  no  avail.  He  has  transgressed  the  law 
of  laws,  and  he  is  therefore  doomed  to  inevitable 
agony.  Because  of  this  superhuman  aspect  of  the 
tragic  struggle,  the  Greek  drama  was  religious  in 
tone,  and  stimulated  in  the  spectator  the  reverent 
and  lofty  mood  of  awe. 

The  second  type  of  tragedy,  which  is  represented 
by  the  great  Elizabethan  drama,  displays  the  in- 
dividual foredoomed  to  failure,  no  longer  because 
of  the  preponderant  power  of  destiny,  but  because 
of  certain  defects  inherent  in  his  own  nature. 
The  Fate  of  the  Greeks  has  become  humanised 
and   made   subjective.     Christopher   Marlowe   was 


136   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

the  first  of  the  world's  dramatists  thus  to  set  the 
God  of  all  the  gods  within  the  soul  itself  of  the 
man  who  suffers  and  contends  and  dies.  But  he 
imagined  only  one  phase  of  the  new  and  epoch- 
making  tragic  theme  that  he  discovered.  The  one 
thing  that  he  accomplished  was  to  depict  the  ruin 
of  an  heroic  nature  through  an  insatiable  ambition 
for  supremacy,  doomed  by  its  own  vastitude  to  de- 
feat itself, —  supremacy  of  conquest  and  dominion 
with  Tamburlaine,  supremacy  of  knowledge  with 
Dr.  Faustus,  supremacy  of  wealth  with  Barabas, 
the  Jew  of  Malta.  Shakespeare,  with  his  wider 
mind,  presented  many  other  phases  of  this  new  type 
of  tragic  theme.  Macbeth  is  destroyed  by  vaulting 
ambition  that  o'erleaps  itself;  Hamlet  is  ruined  by 
irresoluteness  and  contemplative  procrastination. 
If  Othello  were  not  overti-ustful,  if  Lear  were  not 
decadent  in  senility,  they  would  not  be  doomed  to 
die  in  the  conflict  that  confronts  them.  They  fall 
self-ruined,  self-destroyed.  This  second  type  of 
tragedy  is  less  lofty  and  religious  than  the  first; 
but  it  is  more  human,  and  therefore,  to  the  specta- 
tor, more  poignant.  We  learn  more  about  God  by 
watching  the  annihilation  of  an  individual  by  Fate ; 
but  we  learn  more  about  Man  by  watching  the  an- 
nihilation of  an  individual  by  himself.  Greek  trag- 
edy sends  our  souls  through  the  invisible;  but 
Ehzabethan  tragedy  answers,  "  Thou  thyself  art 
Heaven  and  Hell.'* 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        137 

The  third  type  of  tragedy  is  represented  by  the 
modern  social  drama.  In  this  the  individual  is 
displaj'ed  in  conflict  with  his  environment ;  and  the 
drama  deals  with  the  mighty  war  between  personal 
character  and  social  conditions.  The  Greek  hero 
struggles  with  the  superhuman;  the  Elizabethan 
hero  struggles  with  himself ;  the  modern  hero  strug- 
gles with  the  world.  Dr.  Stockmann,  in  Ibsen's 
An  Enemy  of  the  People,  is  perhaps  the  most  de- 
finitive example  of  the  type,  although  the  play  in 
which  he  appears  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  trag- 
edy. He  says  that  he  is  the  strongest  man  on 
earth  because  he  stands  most  alone.  On  the  one 
side  are  the  legions  of  society ;  on  the  other  side  a 
man.  This  is  such  stuff  as  modem  plays  are 
made  of. 

Thus,  whereas  the  Greeks  religiously  ascribed  the 
source  of  all  inevitable  doom  to  divine  foreordina- 
tion,  and  the  Elizabethans  poetically  ascribed  it  to 
the  weaknesses  the  human  soul  is  heir  to,  the  mod- 
ems prefer  to  ascribe  it  scientifically  to  the  dissi- 
dence  between  the  individual  and  his  social  environ- 
ment. With  the  Greeks  the  catastrophe  of  man 
was  decreed  by  Fate;  with  the  Elizabethans  it  was 
decreed  by  his  own  soul ;  with  us  it  is  decreed  by 
Mrs.  Grundy.  Heaven  and  Hell  were  once  en- 
throned high  above  Olympus ;  then,  as  with  Mar- 
lowe's Mephistophilis,  they  were  seated  deep  in 
every  individual  soul ;  now  at  last  they  have  been 


138   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

located  in  the  prim  parlor  of  the  conventional  dame 
next  door.  Obviously  the  modern  type  of  trag- 
edy is  inherently  less  religious  than  the  Greek, 
since  science  has  as  yet  induced  no  dwelling-place 
for  God.  It  is  also  inherently  less  poetic  than  the 
Elizabethan,  since  sociological  discussion  demands 
the  mood  of  prose. 

n 

Such  being  in  general  the  theme  and  the  aspect 
of  the  modern  social  drama,  we  may  next  consider 
briefly  how  it  came  into  being.  Like  a  great  deal 
else  in  contemporary  art,  it  could  not  possibly 
have  been  engendered  before  that  tumultuous  up- 
heaval of  human  thought  which  produced  in  his- 
tory the  French  Revolution  and  in  literature  the 
resurgence  of  romance.  During  the  eighteenth 
century,  both  in  England  and  in  France,  society 
was  considered  paramount  and  the  individual  sub- 
servient. Each  man  was  believed  to  exist  for  the 
sake  of  the  social  mechanism  of  which  he  formed 
a  part:  the  chain  was  the  thing, —  not  its  weakest, 
nor  even  its  strongest,  link.  But  the  French  Revo- 
lution and  the  cognate  romantic  revival  in  the  arts 
unsettled  this  conservative  belief,  and  made  men 
wonder  whether  society,  after  all,  did  not  exist 
solely  for  the  sake  of  the  individual.  Early  eight- 
eenth century  literature  is  a  polite  and  polished 
exaltation  of  society,  and  preaches  that  the  ma- 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        139 

jority  is  always  right;  early  nineteenth  century 
literature  is  a  clamorous  pjean  of  individualism,  and 
preaches  that  the  majority  is  always  wrong.  Con- 
sidering the  modem  social  drama  as  a  phase  of 
history,  we  see  at  once  that  it  is  based  upon  the 
struggle  between  these  two  beliefs.  It  exhibits  al- 
ways a  conflict  between  the  individual  revolutionist 
and  the  communal  conserv^atives,  and  expresses  the 
growing  tendency  of  these  opposing  forces  to  ad- 
just themselves  to  equilibrium. 

Thus  considered,  the  modem  social  drama  is 
seen  to  be  inherently  and  necessarily  the  product 
and  the  expression  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Through  no  other  type  of  drama  could  the  present 
age  reveal  itself  so  fully ;  for  the  relation  between 
the  one  and  the  many,  in  politics,  in  religion,  In 
the  daily  round  of  life  itself,  has  been,  and  still  re- 
mains, the  most  important  topic  of  our  times. 
The  paramount  human  problem  of  the  last  hun- 
dred years  has  been  the  great,  as  yet  unanswered, 
question  whether  the  strongest  man  on  earth  Is  he 
who  stands  most  alone  or  he  who  subserves  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.  Upon  the 
struggle  implicit  in  this  question  the  modern  drama 
necessarily  is  based,  since  the  dramatist,  in  any  pe- 
riod when  the  theatre  is  really  alive,  Is  obliged  to 
tell  the  people  in  the  audience  what  they  have  them- 
selves been  thinking.  Those  critics,  therefore, 
have  no  ground  to  stand  on  who  belittle  the  im- 


140   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

portance  of  the  modem  social  drama  and  regard 
it  as  an  arbitrary  phase  of  art  devised,  for  busi- 
ness reasons  merely,  by  a  handful  of  clever  play- 
wrights. 

Although  the  third  and  modern  type  of  tragedy 
has  grown  to  be  almost  exclusively  the  property  of 
realistic  writers,  it  is  interesting  to  recall  that  it 
was  first  introduced  into  the  theatre  of  the  world 
by  the  king  of  the  romantics.  It  was  Victor 
Hugo's  Hernani,  produced  in  1830,  which  first  ex- 
hibited a  dramatic  struggle  between  an  individual 
and  society  at  large.  The  hero  is  a  bandit  and  an 
outlaw,  and  he  is  doomed  to  failure  because  of  the 
superior  power  of  organised  society  arrayed  against 
him.  So  many  minor  victories  were  won  at  that 
famous  premiere  of  Hernani  that  even  Hugo's  fol- 
lowers were  too  excited  to  perceive  that  he  had 
given  the  drama  a  new  subject  and  the  theatre  a 
new  theme;  but  this  epoch-making  fact  may  now 
be  clearly  recognised  in  retrospect.  Hernani,  and 
all  of  Victor  Hugo's  subsequent  dramas,  dealt, 
however,  with  distant  times  and  lands;  and  it  was 
left  to  another  great  romantic,  Alexander  Dumas 
pere,  to  be  the  first  to  give  the  modem  theme  a 
modern  setting.  In  his  best  play,  Antony,  which 
exhibits  the  struggle  of  a  bastard  to  establish  him- 
self in  the  so-called  best  society,  Dumas  brought 
the  discussion  home  to  his  own  country  and  his  own 
period.     In   the  hands   of  that  extremely  gifted 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        141 

dramatist,  Emile  Augier,  the  new  type  of  serious 
drama  passed  over  into  the  possession  of  the  real- 
ists, and  so  downward  to  the  latter-day  realistic 
dramatists  of  France  and  England,  Germany  and 
Scandinavia.  The  supreme  and  the  most  tj'pical 
creative  figure  of  the  entire  period  is,  of  course, 
the  Norwegian  Henrik  Ibsen,  who  —  such  is  the 
iron}'  of  progress  —  despised  the  romantics  of 
1830,  and  frequently  expressed  a  bitter  scorn  for 
those  predecessors  who  discovered  and  developed 
the  type  of  tragedy  which  he  perfected. 

in 

We  are  now  prepared  to  inquire  more  closely 
into  the  specific  sort  of  subject  which  the  modern 
social  drama  imposes  on  the  dramatist.  The  exist- 
ence of  any  struggle  between  an  individual  and 
the  conventions  of  society  presupposes  that  the  in- 
dividual is  unconventional.  If  the  hero  were  in  ac- 
cord with  society,  there  would  be  no  conflict  of 
contending  forces :  he  must  therefore  be  one  of  so- 
ciety's outlaws,  or  else  there  can  be  no  play.  In 
modern  times,  therefore,  the  serious  drama  has  been 
forced  to  select  as  its  leading  figures  men  and 
women  outcast  and  condemned  by  conventional  so- 
ciety. It  has  dealt  with  courtesans  (La  Dame  Aux 
Camelias),  dcmi-mondaines  (Le  Demi-Mondc),  err- 
ing wives  (Frou-Fron),  women  with  a  past  {lite 
Second  Mrs.    Tanqueray),   free  lovers   (TJic  No- 


142   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

torious  Mrs.  Ehbsmith),  bastards  {Antony;  Le 
Fils  Naturel),  ex-convicts  (John  Gabriel  Bork- 
man),  people  with  ideas  in  advance  of  their  time 
(Ghosts),  and  a  host  of  other  characters  that  are 
usually  considered  dangerous  to  society.  In  order 
that  the  dramatic  struggle  might  be  tense,  the 
dramatists  have  been  forced  to  strengthen  the  cases 
of  their  characters  so  as  to  suggest  that,  perhaps, 
in  the  special  situations  cited,  the  outcasts  were 
right  and  society  was  wrong.  Of  course  it  would 
be  impossible  to  base  a  play  upon  the  thesis  that, 
in  a  given  conflict  between  the  individual  and  so- 
ciety, society  was  indisputably  right  and  the  indi- 
vidual indubitably  wrong ;  because  the  essential  ele- 
ment of  struggle  would  be  absent.  Our  modern 
dramatists,  therefore,  have  been  forced  to  deal  with 
exceptional  outcasts  of  society, —  outcasts  with 
whom  the  audience  might  justly  sympathise  in  their 
conflict  with  convention.  The  task  of  finding  such 
justifiable  outcasts  has  of  necessity  narrowed  the 
subject-matter  of  the  modern  drama.  It  would  be 
hard,  for  instance,  to  make  out  a  good  case  against 
society  for  the  robber,  the  murderer,  the  anarchist. 
But  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  make  out  a  good 
case  for  a  man  and  a  woman  involved  in  some  sex- 
ual relation  which  brings  upon  them  the  censure  of 
society  but  which  seems  in  itself  its  own  excuse  for 
being.  Our  modern  serious  dramatists  have  been 
driven,  therefore,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases, 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        143 

to  deal  almost  exclusively  with  problems   of  sex. 

This  necessity  has  pushed  them  upon  dangerous 
ground.  Man  is,  after  all,  a  social  animal.  The 
necessity  of  maintaining  tiie  solidarity  of  the  fam- 
ily —  a  necessity  (as  the  late  John  Fiske  luminously 
pointed  out)  due  to  the  long  period  of  infancy  in 
man  —  has  forced  mankind  to  adopt  certain  social 
laws  to  regulate  the  interrelations  of  men  and 
women.  Any  strong  attempt  to  subvert  these  laws 
is  dangerous  not  only  to  that  tissue  of  convention 
called  society  but  also  to  the  development  of  the 
human  race.  And  here  we  find  our  dramatists 
forced  —  first  by  the  spirit  of  the  times,  which  gives 
them  their  theme,  and  second  by  the  nature  of  the 
dramatic  art,  which  demands  a  special  treatment  of 
that  theme  —  to  hold  a  brief  for  certain  men  and 
women  who  have  shuffled  off  the  coil  of  those  very 
social  laws  that  man  has  devised,  with  his  best 
wisdom,  for  the  preservation  of  his  race.  And  the 
question  naturally  follows:  Is  a  drama  that  does 
this  moral  or  immoral.'' 

But  the  philosophical  basis  for  this  question  is 
usually  not  understood  at  all  by  those  critics  who 
presume  to  answer  the  question  off-hand  in  a 
spasm  of  polemics.  It  is  interesting,  as  an  evi- 
dence of  the  shallowness  of  most  contemporary 
dramatic  criticism,  to  read  over,  in  the  course  of 
Mr.  Shaw's  nimble  essay  on  The  Quintessence  of 
Ibsenism,  the  collection  which  the  author  has  made 


144   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

of  the  adverse  notices  of  Ghosts  which  appeared  in 
the  London  newspapers  on  the  occasion  of  the  first 
performance  of  the  play  in  England.  Unani- 
mously they  commit  the  fallacy  of  condemning  the 
piece  as  immoral  because  of  the  subject  that  it  deals 
with.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  recog- 
nised that  most  of  the  critical  defenses  of  the  same 
piece,  and  of  other  modern  works  of  similar  nature, 
have  been  based  upon  the  identical  fallacy, —  that 
morality  or  immorality  is  a  question  of  subject- 
matter.  But  either  to  condemn  or  to  defend  the 
morality  of  any  work  of  art  because  of  its  material 
alone  is  merely  a  waste  of  words.  There  is  no  such 
thing,  per  se,  as  an  immoral  subject  for  a  play:  in 
the  treatment  of  the  subject,  and  only  in  the  treat- 
ment, lies  the  basis  for  ethical  judgment  of  the  piece. 
Critics  who  condemn  Ghosts  because  of  its  subject- 
matter  might  as  well  condemn  Othello  because  the 
hero  kills  his  wife  —  what  a  suggestion,  look  you, 
to  carry  into  our  homes !  Macbeth  is  not  immoral, 
though  it  makes  night  hideous  with  murder.  The 
greatest  of  all  Greek  dramas,  CEdipus  King,  is  in 
itself  sufficient  proof  that  morality  is  a  thing 
apart  from  subject-matter;  and  Shelley's  The 
Cenci  is  another  case  in  point.  The  only  way  in 
which  a  play  may  be  immoral  is  for  it  to  cloud,  in 
the  spectator,  the  consciousness  of  those  invariable 
laws  of  life  which  say  to  man  "  Thou  shalt  not " 
or  "  Thou  shalt " ;  and  the  one  thing  needful  in 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        145 

order  that  a  drama  may  be  moral  is  that  the  au- 
thor shall  maintain  throughout  the  piece  a  sane  and 
truthful  insight  into  the  soundness  or  unsoundness 
of  the  relations  between  his  characters.  He  must 
know  when  they  are  right  and  know  when  they  are 
wrong,  and  must  make  clear  to  the  audience  the 
reasons  for  his  judgments.  He  cannot  be  immoral 
unless  he  is  untrue.  To  make  us  pity  his  char- 
acters when  they  are  vile  or  love  them  when  they 
are  noxious,  to  invent  excuses  for  them  in  situa- 
tions where  they  cannot  be  excused  —  in  a  single 
word,  to  lie  about  his  characters  —  this  is  for  the 
dramatist  the  one  unpardonable  sin.  Consequently, 
the  only  sane  course  for  a  critic  who  wishes  to 
maintain  the  thesis  that  Ghosts,  or  any  other  mod- 
ern play,  is  immoral,  is  not  to  hurl  mud  at  it,  but 
to  prove  by  the  sound  processes  of  logic  that  the 
play  tells  lies  about  life;  and  the  only  sane  way 
to  defend  such  a  piece  is  not  to  prate  about  the 
"  moral  lesson  "  the  critic  supposes  that  it  teaches, 
but  to  prove  logically  that  it  tells  the  truth. 

The  same  test  of  truthfulness  by  which  we  dis- 
tinguish good  workmanship  from  bad  is  the  only 
test  by  which  we  may  conclusively  distinguish  im- 
moral art  from  moral.  Yet  many  of  the  contro- 
versial critics  never  calm  down  sufficiently  to  apply 
this  test.  Instead  of  arguing  whether  or  not  Ibsen 
tells  the  truth  about  Hedda  Gabler,  they  quarrel 
with  him  or  defend  him  for  talking  about  her  at 


146   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

all.  It  is  as  if  zoologists  who  had  assembled  to 
determine  the  truth  or  falsity  of  some  scientific 
theory  concerning  the  anatomy  of  a  reptile  should 
waste  all  their  time  in  contending  whether  or  not  the 
reptile  was  unclean. 

And  even  when  they  do  apply  the  test  of  truth- 
fulness, many  critics  are  troubled  by  a  grave  mis- 
conception that  leads  them  into  error.  They  make 
the  mistake  of  applying  generally  to  life  certain 
ethical  judgments  that  the  dramatist  means  only  to 
apply  'particularly  to  the  special  people  in  his  play. 
The  danger  of  this  fallacy  cannot  be  too  strongly 
emphasised.  It  is  not  the  business  of  the  drama- 
tist to  formulate  general  laws  of  conduct ;  he  leaves 
that  to  the  social  scientist,  the  ethical  philosopher, 
the  religious  preacher.  His  business  is  merely  to 
tell  the  truth  about  certain  special  characters  in- 
volved in  certain  special  situations.  If  the  char- 
acters and  the  situations  be  abnormal,  the  drama- 
tist must  recognise  that  fact  in  judging  them;  and 
it  is  not  just  for  the  critic  to  apply  to  ordinar}^ 
people  in  the  ordinary  situations  of  life  a  judgment 
thus  conditioned.  The  question  in  La  Dame  Aux 
Camelias  is  not  whether  the  class  of  women  which 
Marguerite  Gautier  represents  is  generally  esti- 
mable, but  whether  a  particular  woman  of  that  class, 
set  in  certain  special  circumstances,  was  not  worthy 
of  sympathy.  The  question  in  A  DolVs  House  is 
not  whether  any  woman   should  forsake  her  hus- 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        u? 

band  and  children  when  she  happens  to  feel  like  it, 
but  Avhether  a  particular  woman,  Nora,  living  un- 
der special  conditions  with  a  certain  kind  of  hus- 
band, Torwald,  really  did  deem  herself  justified  in 
leaving  her  doll's  home,  perhaps  forever.  The 
ethics  of  any  play  should  be  determined,  not  ex- 
ternally, but  within  the  limits  of  the  play  itself. 
And  yet  our  modern  social  dramatists  are  persist- 
entl\'  misjudged.  We  hear  talk  of  the  moral  teach- 
ing of  Ibsen, —  as  if,  instead  of  being  a  maker  of 
plays,  he  had  been  a  maker  of  golden  rules.  But 
Mr.  Shaw  came  nearer  to  the  truth  with  his  famous 
paradox  that  the  only  golden  rule  in  Ibsen's 
dramas  is  that  there  is  no  golden  rule. 

It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  the  drama- 
tists themselves  are  not  entirely  guiltless  of  this 
current  critical  misconception.  Most  of  them  hap- 
pen to  be  realists,  and  in  devising  their  situations 
they  aim  to  be  narrowly  natural  as  well  as  broadly 
true.  The  result  is  that  the  circumstances  of  their 
plays  have  an  ordinary  look  which  makes  them 
seem  simple  transcripts  of  everyday  life  instead  of 
special  studies  of  life  under  peculiar  conditions. 
Consequently  the  audience,  and  even  the  critic,  is 
tempted  to  judge  life  In  terms  of  the  play  instead 
of  judging  the  play  in  terms  of  life.  Thus  falsely 
judged,  The  Wild  Duck  (to  take  an  emphatic  in- 
stance) is  outrageously  innnoral,  although  it  nnist 
bo   judged    moral   by    the   philosophic    critic    who 


148   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

questions  only  whether  or  not  Ibsen  told  the  truth 
about  the  particular  people  involved  in  its  depress- 
ing story.  The  deeper  question  remains:  Was 
Ibsen  justified  in  writing  a  play  which  was  true 
and  therefore  moral,  but  which  necessarily  would 
have  an  immoral  effect  on  nine  spectators  out  of 
every  ten,  because  they  would  instinctively  make  a 
hasty  and  false  generalisation  from  the  exceptional 
and  very  particular  ethics  implicit  in  the  story? 

For  it  must  be  bravely  recognised  that  any  state- 
ment of  truth  which  is  so  framed  as  to  be  falsely 
understood  conveys  a  lie.  If  the  dramatist  says 
quite  truly,  "  This  particular  leaf  is  sere  and  yel- 
low," and  if  the  audience  quite  falsely  understands 
him  to  say,  "  All  leaves  are  sere  and  yellow,"  the 
gigantic  lie  has  illogically  been  conveyed  that  the 
world  is  ever  windy  with  autumn,  that  spring  is 
but  a  lyric  dream,  and  summer  an  illusion.  The 
modern  social  drama,  even  when  it  is  most  truthful 
within  its  own  limits,  is  by  its  very  nature  liable  to 
just  this  sort  of  illogical  conveyance  of  a  lie.  It 
sets  forth  a  struggle  between  a  radical  exception 
and  a  conservative  rule;  and  the  audience  is  likely 
to  forget  that  the  exception  is  merely  an  exception, 
and  to  infer  that  it  is  greater  than  the  rule.  Such 
an  inference,  being  untrue,  is  immoral;  and  in  so 
far  as  a  dramatist  aids  and  abets  it,  he  must  be 
judged  dangerous  to  the  theatre-going  public. 

Whenever,  then,  it  becomes  important  to  deter- 


THE  MODERN  SOCIAL  DRAMA        149 

mine  whetlier  a  new  play  of  the  modem  social  type 
is  moral  or  immoral,  the  critic  should  decide  first 
whether  the  author  tells  lies  specifically  about  any 
of  the  people  in  his  story,  and  second,  provided 
that  the  playwright  passes  the  first  test  success- 
fully, whether  he  allures  the  audience  to  generalise 
falsely  in  regard  to  life  at  large  from  the  specific 
circumstances  of  his  play.  These  two  questions 
are  the  only  ones  that  need  to  be  decided.  This  is 
the  crux  of  the  whole  matter.  And  it  has  been 
the  purpose  of  the  present  chapter  merely  to  estab- 
lish this  one  point  by  historical  and  philosophic 
criticism,  and  thus  to  clear  the  ground  for  subse- 
quent discussion. 


OTHER  PRINCIPLES  OF  DRAMATIC 
CRITICISM 


OTHER  PRINCIPLES 
OF  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM 


THE  PUBLIC  AND  THE  DRAMATIST 

No  other  artist  is  so  little  appreciated  by  the 
public  that  enjoys  his  work,  or  is  granted  so  little 
studious  consideration  from  the  critically  minded, 
as  the  dramatist.  Other  artists,  like  the  novelist, 
the  painter,  the  sculptor,  or  the  actor,  appeal  di- 
rectly to  the  public  and  the  critics ;  nothing  stands 
between  their  finished  work  and  the  minds  that 
contemplate  it.  A  person  reading  a  novel  by  Mr. 
Howells,  or  looking  at  a  statue  by  Saint-Gaudens 
or  a  picture  by  Mr.  Sargent,  may  see  exactly  what 
the  artist  has  done  and  what  he  has  not,  and  may 
appreciate  his  work  accordingly.  But  when  the 
dramatist  has  completed  his  play,  he  does  not  de- 
liver it  directly  to  the  public ;  he  delivers  it  only  in- 
directly, through  the  medial  interpretation  of  many 
other  artists, —  the  actor,  the  stage-director,  the 
scene-painter,  and  still  others  of  whom  the  public 
seldom  hears.     If  any  of  these  other  and  medial 

153 


154   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

artists  fails  to  convey  the  message  that  the  drama- 
tist intended,  the  dramatist  will  fail  of  his  intention, 
though  the  fault  is  not  his  own.  None  of  the  gen- 
eral public,  and  few  of  the  critics,  will  discern  what 
the  dramatist  had  in  mind,  so  completely  may  his 
creative  thought  be  clouded  by  inadequate  inter- 
pretation. 

The  dramatist  is  obviously  at  the  mercy  of  his  ac- 
tors. His  most  delicate  love  scene  may  be  spoiled 
irrevocably  by  an  actor  incapable  of  profound 
emotion  daintily  expressed ;  his  most  imaginative 
creation  of  a  hard  and  cruel  character  may  be  ren- 
dered unappreciable  by  an  actor  of  too  persuasive 
charm.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  puppets  of  a 
dramatist  with  very  little  gift  for  characterisation 
may  sometimes  be  lifted  into  life  by  gifted  actors 
and  produce  upon  the  public  a  greater  impression 
than  the  characters  of  a  better  dramatist  less  skil- 
fully portrayed.  It  is,  therefore,  very  difficult  to 
determine  whether  the  dramatist  has  imagined  more 
or  less  than  the  particular  semblance  of  humanity 
exhibited  by  the  actor  on  the  stage.  Othello,  as 
portrayed  by  Signer  Novelli,  is  a  man  devoid  of 
dignity  and  majesty,  a  creature  intensely  animal 
and  nervously  impulsive;  and  if  we  had  never  read 
the  play,  or  seen  other  performances  of  it,  we 
should  probably  deny  to  Shakespeare  the  credit 
due  for  one  of  his  most  grand  conceptions.  On 
the  other  hand,  when  we  witness  Mr.  Warfield's 


THE  PUBLIC  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       155 

beautiful  and  truthful  performance  of  The  Music 
Master,  we  are  tempted  not  to  notice  that  the  play 
itself  is  faulty  in  structure,  untrue  in  character, 
and  obnoxiously  sentimental  in  tone.  Because  Mr. 
Warfield,  by  the  sheer  power  of  his  histrionic 
genius,  has  lifted  sentimentality  into  sentiment  and 
conventional  theatricism  into  living  truth,  we  are 
tempted  to  give  to  Mr.  Charles  Klein  the  credit 
for  having  written  a  very  good  play  instead  of  a 
very  bad  one. 

Only  to  a  slightly  less  extent  is  the  dramatist  at 
the  mercy  of  his  stage-director.  Mrs.  Rida  John- 
son Young's  silly  play  called  Brown  of  Harvard 
was  made  worth  seeing  by  the  genius  of  Mr.  Henry 
Miller  as  a  producer.  By  sheer  visual  imagination 
in  the  setting  and  the  handling  of  the  stage,  es- 
pecially in  the  first  act  and  the  last,  Mr.  IVIiller  con- 
trived to  endow  the  author's  shallow  fabric  with  the 
semblance  of  reality.  On  the  other  hand,  ]\Ir. 
Richard  Walton  Tully's  play,  The  Rose  of  the 
Rancho,  was  spoiled  by  the  cleverest  stage-director 
of  our  day.  Mr.  TuUy  must,  originally,  have  had 
a  story  in  his  mind;  but  what  that  story  was  could 
not  be  guessed  from  witnessing  the  play.  It  was 
utterly  buried  under  an  atmosphere  of  at  least 
thirty  pounds  to  the  square  inch,  which  Mr.  Be- 
lasco  chose  to  impose  upon  it.  With  the  stage- 
director  standing  tiius,  for  benefit  or  hindrance, 
between   the  author   and  the  audience,  how   is  the 


156   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

public  to  appreciate  what  the  dramatist  himself  has, 
or  has  not,  done? 

An  occasion  is  remembered  in  theatric  circles 
when,  at  the  tensest  moment  in  the  first-night  pres- 
entation of  a  play,  the  leading  actress,  entering 
down  a  stairway,  tripped  and  fell  sprawling. 
Thus  a  moment  which  the  dramatist  intended  to  be 
hushed  and  breathless  with  suspense  was  made  over- 
whelmingly ridiculous.  A  cat  once  caused  the  fail- 
ure of  a  play  by  appearing  unexpectedly  upon  the 
stage  during  the  most  important  scene  and  walking 
foolishly  about.  A  dramatist  who  has  spent  many 
months  devising  a  melodrama  which  is  dependent 
for  its  effect  at  certain  moments  on  the  way  in 
which  the  stage  is  lighted  may  have  his  play  sent 
suddenly  to  failure  at  any  of  those  moments  if  the 
stage-electrician  turns  the  lights  incongruously 
high  or  low.  These  instances  are  merely  trivial, 
but  they  serve  to  emphasise  the  point  that  so  much 
stands  between  the  dramatist  and  the  audience  that 
it  is  sometimes  difficult  even  for  a  careful  critic  to 
appreciate  exactly  what  the  dramatist  intended. 

And  the  general  public,  at  least  in  present-day 
America,  never  makes  the  effort  to  distinguish  the 
intention  of  the  dramatist  from  the  interpretation 
it  receives  from  the  actors  and  (to  a  less  extent) 
the  stage-director.  The  people  who  support  the 
theatre  see  and  estimate  the  work  of  the  interpre- 
tative artists  only;  they  do  not  see  in  itself  and 


THE  PUBLIC  AND  THE  DRAMATIST      157 

estimate  for  its  own  sake  the  work  of  the  creative 
artist  whose  imaginings  are  being  represented  well 
or  badly.  The  public  in  America  goes  to  see  ac- 
tors; it  seldom  goes  to  see  a  play.  If  the  average 
theatre-goer  has  liked  a  leading  actor  in  one  piece, 
he  will  go  to  see  that  actor  in  the  next  piece  in 
which  he  is  advertised  to  appear.  But  very,  very 
rarely  will  he  go  to  see  a  new  play  by  a  certain 
author  merely  because  he  has  liked  the  last  play  by 
the  same  author.  Indeed,  the  chances  are  that  he 
will  not  even  know  that  the  two  plays  have  been 
written  by  the  same  dramatist.  Bronson  Howard 
once  told  me  that  he  was  very  sure  that  not  more 
than  one  person  in  ten  out  of  all  the  people  who  had 
seen  Shenandoah  knew  who  wrote  the  play.  And 
I  hardly  think  that  a  larger  proportion  of  the  peo- 
ple who  have  seen  both  Mr.  Willard  in  The  Pro- 
fessor's Love  Story  and  Miss  Barrymore  in  Alice- 
S'lt-hy-the-F ire  could  tell  you,  if  you  should  ask 
them,  that  the  former  play  was  written  by  the  au- 
thor of  the  latter.  How  many  people  who  remem- 
ber vividly  Sir  Henry  Irving's  performance  of 
The  Story  of  Waterloo  could  tell  you  who  wrote 
the  little  piece?  If  you  should  ask  them  who 
wrote  the  Sherlock  Holmes  detective  stories,  they 
■would  answer  you  at  once.  Yet  The  Story  of 
Waterloo  was  written  by  the  author  of  those  same 
detective  stories. 

The  general   public  seldoms  knows,  and  almost 


158   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

never  cares,  who  wrote  a  play.  What  it  knows, 
and  what  it  cares  about  primarily,  is  who  is  acting 
in  it.  Shakespearean  dramas  are  the  only  plays 
that  the  public  will  go  to  see  for  the  author's  sake 
alone,  regardless  of  the  actors.  It  will  go  to  see 
a  bad  performance  of  a  play  by  Shakespeare,  be- 
cause, after  all,  it  is  seeing  Shakespeare :  it  will  not 
go  to  see  a  bad  performance  of  a  play  by  Sir 
Arthur  Pinero,  merely  because,  after  all,  it  is  see- 
ing Pinero.  The  extraordinary  success  of  The 
Master  Builder,  when  it  was  presented  in  New  York 
by  Mme.  Nazimova,  is  an  evidence  of  this.  The 
public  that  filled  the  coffers  of  the  Bijou  Theatre 
was  paying  its  money  not  so  much  to  see  a  play  by 
the  author  of  A  DolVs  House  and  Hedda  Gabler  as 
to  see  a  performance  by  a  clever  and  tricky  actress 
of  alluring  personality,  who  was  better  advertised 
and,  to  the  average  theatre-goer,  better  known  than 
Henrik  Ibsen. 

Since  the  public  at  large  is  much  more  interested 
in  actors  than  it  is  in  dramatists,  and  since  the  first- 
night  critics  of  the  daily  newspapers  write  neces- 
sarily for  the  public  at  large,  they  usually  devote 
most  of  their  attention  to  criticising  actors  rather 
than  to  criticising  dramatists.  Hence  the  general 
theatre-goer  is  seldom  aided,  even  by  the  profes- 
sional interpreters  of  theatric  art,  to  arrive  at  an 
understanding  and  appreciation,  for  its  own  sake, 
of  that  share  in  the  entire  artistic  production  which 


THE  PUBLIC  AND  THE  DRAMATIST       159 

belongs  to  the  dramatist  and  the  dramatist  alone. 

For,  in  present-day  America  at  least,  production 
in  the  theatre  is  the  dramatist's  sole  means  of  pub- 
lication, his  only  medium  for  conveying  to  the  pub- 
lic those  truths  of  life  he  wishes  to  express.  Very 
few  plays  are  printed  nowadays,  and  those  few  are 
rarely  read:  seldom,  therefore,  do  they  receive  as 
careful  critical  consideration  as  even  third-class 
novels.  The  late  Clyde  Fitch  printed  The  Girl 
mth  the  Green  Eyes.  The  third  act  of  that  play 
exhibits  a  very  wonderful  and  searching  study  of 
feminine  jealousy.  But  who  has  bothered  to  read 
it,  and  what  accredited  book-reviewer  has  troubled 
himself  to  accord  it  the  notice  it  deserves.''  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  that  remarkable  third  act  is  re- 
membered only  by  people  who  saw  it  acted  in  the 
theatre.  Since,  therefore,  speaking  broadly,  the 
dramatist  can  publish  his  work  only  through  pro- 
duction, it  is  only  through  attending  plays  and 
studying  what  lies  beneath  the  acting  and  behind 
the  presentation  that  even  the  most  well-intentioned 
critic  of  contemporary  drama  can  discover  what  our 
dramatists  are  driving  at. 

The  great  misfortune  of  this  condition  of  affairs 
is  that  the  failure  of  a  play  as  a  business  proposi- 
tion cuts  off  suddenly  and  finally  the  dramatist's 
sole  opportunity  for  publishing  his  thought,  even 
though  the  failure  may  be  due  to  any  one  of  many 
causes  other  than  incompetence  on  the  part  of  the 


160   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

dramatist.  A  very  good  play  may  fail  because  of 
bad  acting  or  crude  production,  or  merely  because 
it  has  been  brought  out  at  the  wrong  time  of  the 
3'^ear  or  has  opened  in  the  wrong  sort  of  city. 
Sheridan's  Rivals,  as  everybody  knows,  failed  when 
it  was  first  presented.  But  when  once  a  play  has 
failed  at  the  present  day,  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  the  dramatist  to  persuade  any  manager  to  un- 
dertake a  second  presentation  of  it.  Whether  good 
or  bad,  the  play  is  killed,  and  the  unfortunate 
dramatist  is  silenced  until  his  next  play  is  granted 
a  hearing. 


II 


DRAMATIC  ART  AND  THE  THEATRE  BUSI- 
NESS 

Akt  makes  things  which  need  to  be  distributed; 
business  distributes  things  which  have  been  made: 
and  each  of  the  arts  is  therefore  necessarily  ac- 
companied by  a  business,  whose  special  purpose  is 
to  distribute  the  products  of  that  art.  Thus,  a 
very  necessary  relation  exists  between  the  painter 
and  the  picture-dealer,  or  between  the  writer  and 
the  publisher  of  books.  In  either  case,  the  busi- 
ness man  earns  his  living  by  exploiting  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  artist,  and  the  artist  earns  his  living 
by  bringing  his  goods  to  the  market  which  has 
been  opened  by  the  industry  of  the  business  man. 
The  relation  between  the  two  is  one  of  mutual  as- 
sistance; yet  the  spheres  of  their  labors  are  quite 
distinct,  and  each  must  work  in  accordance  with  a 
set  of  laws  which  have  no  immediate  bearing  upon 
the  activities  of  the  otlier.  The  artist  must  obey 
the  laws  of  his  art,  as  they  are  revealed  by  his  own 
impulses  and  interpreted  by  constructive  criticism ; 
but  of  these  laws  the  business  man  ma}',  without 
prejudice  to  his  efficiency,  be  largely  ignorant.     On 

161 


162   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

the  other  hand,  the  business  man  must  do  his  work 
in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  economics, —  a  sci- 
ence of  which  artists  ordinarily  know  very  little. 
Business  is,  of  necessity,  controlled  by  the  great 
economic  law  of  supply  and  demand.  Of  the  prac- 
tical workings  of  this  law  the  business  man  is  in 
a  position  to  know  much  more  than  the  artist ;  and 
the  latter  must  always  be  greatly  influenced  by  the 
former  in  deciding  as  to  what  he  shall  make  and 
how  he  shall  make  it.  This  influence  of  the  pub- 
lisher, the  dealer,  the  business  manager,  is  nearly 
always  beneficial,  because  it  helps- the  artist  to  avoid 
a  waste  of  work  and  to  conserve  and  concentrate 
his  energies ;  yet  frequently  the  mind  of  the  maker 
desires  to  escape  from  it,  and  there  is  scarcely  an 
artist  worth  his  salt  who  has  not  at  some  moments, 
with  the  zest  of  truant  joy,  made  things  which 
were  not  for  sale.  In  nearly  all  the  arts  it  is  pos- 
sible to  secede  at  will  from  all  allegiance  to  the 
business  which  is  based  upon  them ;  and  Raphael 
may  write  a  century  of  sonnets,  or  Dante  paint  a 
picture  of  an  angel,  without  considering  the  pub- 
lisher or  picture-dealer.  But  there  is  one  of  the 
arts  —  the  art  of  the  drama  —  which  can  never 
be  disassociated  from  its  concomitant  business  — 
the  business  of  the  theatre.  It  is  impossible  to 
imagine  a  man  making  anything  which  might 
justly  be  called  a  play  merely  to  please  himself 
and  with  no  thought  whatever  of  pleasing  also  an 


ART  AND  THE  THEATRE  BUSINESS       l63 

audience  of  others  bj-  presenting  it  before  them 
with  actors  on  a  stage.  But  the  mere  existence  of 
a  theatre,  a  company  of  actors,  an  audience  assem- 
bled, necessitates  an  economic  organisation  and 
presupposes  a  business  manager ;  and  this  business 
manager,  who  sets  the  play  before  the  public  and 
attracts  the  public  to  the  play,  must  necessarily 
exert  a  potent  influence  over  the  playwright.  The 
onlj''  way  in  which  a  dramatist  may  free  himself 
from  this  influence  is  by  managing  his  own  com- 
pany, like  ]\Ioliere,  or  by  conducting  his  own  thea- 
tre, like  Shakespeare.  Onh'  b}'  assuming  himself 
the  functions  of  the  manager  can  the  dramatist 
escape  from  him.  In  all  ages,  therefore,  the 
dramatist  has  been  forced  to  confront  two  sets  of 
problems  rather  than  one.  He  has  been  obliged 
to  study  and  to  follow  not  only  the  technical  laws 
of  the  dramatic  art  but  also  the  commercial  laws  of 
the  theatre  business.  And  whereas,  in  the  case  of 
the  other  arts,  the  student  may  consider  the  painter 
and  ignore  the  picture-dealer,  or  analyse  the  mind 
of  the  novelist  without  analysing  that  of  his  pub- 
lisher, the  student  of  the  drama  in  any  age  must 
always  take  account  of  the  manager,  and  cannot 
avoid  consideration  of  the  economic  organisation 
of  the  theatre  in  that  age.  Those  who  are  most 
familiar  with  the  dramatic  and  poetic  art  of  Chris- 
topher Marlowe  and  the  histrionic  art  of  Edward 
AUeyn  are  the  least  likely  to  underestimate  the  im- 


164   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

portant  influence  which  was  exerted  on  the  early 
EUzabethan  drama  by  the  ilhterate  but  crafty  and 
enterprising  manager  of  these  great  artists,  PhiHp 
Henslowe.  Students  of  the  Queen  Anne  period 
may  read  the  comedies  of  Congreve,  but  they  must 
also  read  the  autobiography  of  Colley  Gibber,  the 
actor-manager  of  the  Theatre  Royal.  And  the 
critic  who  considers  the  drama  of  to-day  must  often 
turn  from  problems  of  art  to  problems  of  eco- 
nomics, and  seek  for  the  root  of  certain  evils  not  in 
the  technical  methods  of  the  dramatists  but  in  the 
business  methods  of  the  managers. 

At  the  present  time,  for  instance,  the  dramatic 
art  in  America  is  suffering  from  a  very  unusual 
economic  condition,  which  is  unsound  from  the  busi- 
ness standpoint,  and  which  is  likely,  in  the  long 
run,  to  weary  and  to  alienate  the  more  thought- 
ful class  of  theatre-goers.  This  condition  may  be 
indicated  by  the  one  word, —  over-production. 
Some  years  ago,  when  the  theatre  trust  was  or- 
ganised, its  leaders  perceived  that  the  surest  way 
to  win  a  monopoly  of  the  theatre  business  was  to 
get  control  of  the  leading  theatre-buildings 
throughout  the  country  and  then  refuse  to  house 
in  them  the  productions  of  any  independent  man- 
ager who  opposed  them.  By  this  procedure  on 
the  part  of  the  theatre  trust,  the  few  managers 
who  maintained  their  independence  were  forced  to 
build  theatres    in   those   cities   where   they   wished 


ART  AXD  THE  THEATRE  BUSINESS      l65 

their  attractions  to  appear.  AVhen,  a  few  ^cars 
later,  the  organised  opposition  to  the  original  thea- 
tre trust  grew  to  such  dimensions  as  to  become  in 
fact  a  second  trust,  it  could  carry  on  its  campaign 
only  by  building  a  new  chain  of  theatres  to  house 
its  productions  in  those  cities  whose  already  exist- 
ing theatres  were  in  the  hands  of  the  original  syn- 
dicate. As  a  result  of  this  warfare  between  the 
two  trusts,  nearly  all  the  chief  cities  of  the  country 
are  now  saddled  with  more  theatre-buildings  than 
they  can  naturally  and  easily  support.  Two  thea- 
tres stand  side  by  side  in  a  town  whose  theatre- 
going  population  warrants  only  one;  and  there 
are  three  theatres  in  a  city  whose  inhabitants  desire 
only  two.  In  New  York  itself  this  condition  is 
even  more  exaggerated.  Nearly  every  season  some 
of  the  minor  producing  managers  shift  their 
allegiance  from  one  trust  to  the  other;  and  since 
they  seldom  seem  to  know  very  far  in  advance  just 
where  they  will  stand  when  they  may  wish  to  make 
their  next  production  in  New  York,  the  only  way 
in  which  they  can  assure  themselves  of  a  Broad- 
way booking  is  to  build  and  hold  a  theatre  of  their 
own.  Hence,  in  the  last  few  years,  there  has  been 
an  epidemic  of  theatre  building  in  New  York. 
And  this,  it  should  be  carefully  observed,  has  re- 
sulted from  a  false  economic  condition ;  for  new 
theatres  have  been  built,  not  in  order  to  supply  a 
natural  demand  from  the  theatre-going  population, 


166   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

but  in  defiance  of  tlie  limits  imposed  by  that  de- 
mand. 

A  theatre-building  is  a  great  expense  to  its 
owners.  It  always  occupies  land  in  one  of  the 
most  costly  sections  of  a  city ;  and  in  New  York 
this  consideration  is  of  especial  importance.  The 
building  itself  represents  a  large  investment. 
These  two  items  alone  make  it  ruinous  for  the 
owners  to  let  the  building  stand  idle  for  any 
lengthy  period.  They  must  keep  it  open  as  many 
weeks  as  possible  throughout  the  year;  and  if  play 
after  play  fails  upon  its  stage,  they  must  still  seek 
other  entertainments  to  attract  sufficient  money  to 
cover  the  otherwise  dead  loss  of  the  rent.  Hence 
there  exists  at  present  in  America  a  false  demand 
for  plays, —  a  demand,  that  is  to  say,  which  is  oc- 
casioned not  by  the  natural  need  of  the  theatre- 
going  population  but  by  the  frantic  need  on  the 
part  of  warring  managers  to  keep  their  theatres 
open.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  find  enough 
first-class  plays  to  meet  this  fictitious  demand;  and 
the  managers  are  therefore  obliged  to  buy  up 
quantities  of  second-class  plays,  which  they  know 
to  be  inferior  and  which  they  hardly  expect  the 
public  to  approve,  because  it  will  cost  them  less  to 
present  these  inferior  attractions  to  a  small  business 
than  it  would  cost  them  to  shut  down  some  of  their 
superfluous  theatres. 

We  are  thus  confronted  with  the  anomalous  con- 


ART  AND  THE  THEATRE  BUSINESS      l67 

dition  of  a  business  man  offering  for  sale,  at  the 
regular  price,  goods  which  he  knows  to  be  inferior, 
because  he  thinks  that  there  are  just  enough  cus- 
tomers available  who  are  sufficiently  uncritical  not 
to  detect  the  cheat.  Thereby  he  hopes  to  cover  the 
rent  of  an  edifice  which  he  has  built,  in  defiance  of 
sound  economic  principles,  in  a  community  that  is 
not  prepared  to  support  it  throughout  the  year. 
No  very  deep  knowledge  of  economics  is  neces- 
sary to  perceive  that  this  must  become,  in  the  long 
run,  a  ruinous  business  policy.  Too  many  thea- 
tres showing  too  many  plays  too  many  months  in 
the  year  cannot  finally  make  money;  and  this 
falsity  in  the  economic  situation  reacts  against  the 
dramatic  art  itself  and  against  the  public's  ap- 
preciation of  that  art.  Good  work  suffers  by  the 
constant  accompaniment  of  bad  work  which  is  ad- 
vertised in  exactly  the  same  phrases ;  and  the  public, 
which  is  forced  to  see  five  bad  plays  in  order  to  find 
one  good  one,  grows  weary  and  loses  faith.  The 
way  to  improve  our  dramatic  art  is  to  reform  the 
economics  of  our  theatre  business.  We  should  pro- 
duce fewer  plays,  and  better  ones.  We  should 
seek  by  scientific  investigation  to  determine  just 
how  many  theatres  our  cities  can  support,  and  how 
many  weeks  in  the  year  they  may  legitimately  be 
expected  to  su})j)ort  them.  Having  thus  de- 
termined the  real  demand  for  plays  that  comes 
from  the  theatre-going  population,  the  managers 


168   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

should  then  bestir  themselves  to  secure  sufficient 
good  plays  to  satisfy  that  demand.  That,  surely, 
is  the  limit  of  sound  and  legitimate  business.  The 
arbitrary  creation  of  a  further,  false  demand,  and 
the  feverish  grasping  at  a  fictitious  supply,  are 
evidences  of  unsound  economic  methods,  which  are 
certain,  in  the  long  run,  to  fail. 


Ill 

THE    HAPPY    ENDING   IN    THE    THEATRE 

The  question  whether  or  not  a  given  play  should 
have  a  so-called  happy  ending  is  one  that  requires 
more  thorough  consideration  than  is  usually  ac- 
corded to  it.  It  is  nearly  always  discussed  from 
one  point  of  view,  and  one  only, —  that  of  the  box- 
office  ;  but  the  experience  of  ages  goes  to  show 
that  it  cannot  rightly  be  decided,  even  as  a  mat- 
ter of  business  expediency,  without  being  consid- 
ered also  from  two  other  points  of  view, —  that  of 
art,  and  that  of  human  interest.  For  in  the  long 
run,  the  plays  that  pay  the  best  are  those  in  which 
a  self-respecting  art  is  employed  to  satisfy  the 
human  longing  of  the  audience. 

When  we  look  at  the  matter  from  the  point  of 
view  of  art,  we  notice  first  of  all  that  in  any  ques- 
tion of  an  ending,  whether  happy  or  unhappy,  art 
is  doomed  to  satisfy  itself  and  is  denied  the  re- 
course of  an  appeal  to  nature.  Life  itself  pre- 
sents a  continuous  sequence  of  causation,  stretch- 
ing on ;  and  nature  abhors  an  ending  as  it  abhors 
a  vacuum.  If  experience  teaches  us  anything  at 
all,  it  teaches  us  that  nothing  in  life  is  terminal, 

169 


170   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

nothing   is   conclusive.     Marriage   is   not   an   end, 
as  we  presume  in  books;  but  rather  a  beginning. 
Not  even  death  is  final.     We  find  our  graves  not 
in  the  ground  but  in  the  hearts  of  our  survivors, 
and  our  slightest  actions  vibrate  in  ever-widening 
circles  through  incalculable  time.     Any  end,  there- 
fore, to  a  novel  or  a  play,  must  be  in  the  nature 
of  an  artifice;  and  an  ending  must  be  planned  not 
in  accordance  with  life,  which  is  lawless  and  illogi- 
cal, but  in  accordance  with  art,  whose  soul  is  har- 
mony.    It  must  be  a  strictly  logical  result  of  all 
that  has  preceded  it.     Having  begun  with  a  cer- 
tain  intention,  the  true  artist  must  complete  his 
pattern,  in  accordance  with  laws  more  rigid  than 
those  of  life;  and  he  must  not  disrupt  his  design 
by   an  illogical  intervention  of  the  long  arm  of 
coincidence.     Stevenson  has  stated  this  point  in  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Sidney  Colvin :     "  Make  another  end 
to  it.?     Ah,  yes,  but  that's  not  the  way  I  write; 
the  whole  tale  is  implied ;  I  never  use  an  effect  when 
I  can  help  it,  unless  it  prepares  the  effects  that  are 
to   follow;   that's   what  a   story   consists   in.     To 
make  another  end,  that  is  to  make  the  beginning 
all  wrong."     In  this  passage  the  whole  question  is 
considered  merely  from  the  point  of  view  of  art. 
It  is  the  only  point  of  view  which  is  valid  for  the 
novelist ;  for  him  the  question  is  comparatively  sim- 
ple, and  Stevenson's  answer,  emphatic  as  it  is,  may 
be  accepted  as  final.     But  the  dramatist  has  yet 


THE  HAPPY  ENDING  171 

another  factor  to  consider, —  the  factor  of  his  au- 
dience. 

The  drama  is  a  more  popular  art  than  the  novel, 
in  the  sense  that  it  makes  its  appeal  not  to  the  in- 
dividual but  to  the  populace.  It  sets  a  contest  of 
human  wills  before  a  multitude  gathered  together 
for  the  purpose  of  witnessing  the  struggle;  and  it 
must  relj  for  its  interest  largely  upon  the  crowd's 
instinctive  sense  of  partisanship.  As  Marlowe 
said,  in  Hero  and  Leander, — 

When  two  are  stripped,  long  e'er  the  course  begin, 
We  wish  that  one  should  lose,  the  other  win. 

The  audience  takes  sides  with  certain  characters 
against  certain  others ;  and  in  most  cases  it  is  bet- 
ter pleased  if  the  play  ends  in  a  victory  for  the 
characters  it  favors.  The  question  therefore 
arises  whether  the  dramatist  is  not  justified  in  cog- 
ging the  dice  of  chance  and  intervening  arbitrarily 
to  insure  a  happy  outcome  to  the  action,  even 
though  that  outcome  violate  the  rigid  logic  of  the 
art  of  narrative.  This  is  a  very  important  ques- 
tion ;  and  it  must  not  be  answered  dogmaticall3\ 
It  is  safest,  witliout  arguing  ex  cathedra,  to  accept 
the  answer  of  the  very  greatest  dramatists.  Their 
practice  goes  to  show  that  such  a  violation  of  the 
strict  logic  of  art  is  justifiable  in  comedy,  but  is 
not  justifiable  in  what  we  may  broadly  call  the 
serious   drama.     Moliere,   for   instance,   nearly   al- 


172   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

ways  gave  an  arbitrary  happy  ending  to  his  com- 
edies. Frequently,  in  the  last  act,  he  introduced 
a  long  lost  uncle,  who  arrived  upon  the  scene  just 
in  time  to  endow  the  hero  and  heroine  with  a  for- 
tune and  to  say  "  Bless  you,  my  children ! "  as 
the  curtain  fell.  Moliere  evidently  took  the  atti- 
tude that  since  any  ending  whatsoever  must  be  in 
the  nature  of  an  artifice,  and  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  life,  he  might  as  well  falsify  upon  the  pleasant 
side  and  send  his  auditors  happy  to  their  homes. 
Shakespeare  took  the  same  attitude  in  many  com- 
edies, of  which  As  You  Like  It  may  be  chosen  as 
an  illustration.  The  sudden  reform  of  Oliver  and 
the  tardy  repentance  of  the  usurping  duke  are 
^.  both  untrue  to  life  and  illogical  as  art ;  but  Shake- 
speare decided  to  throw  probability  and  logic  to 
the  winds  in  order  to  close  his  comedy  with  a  gen- 
eral feeling  of  good-will.  But  this  easy  answer 
to  the  question  cannot  be  accepted  in  the  case  of 
the  serious  drama ;  for  —  and  this  is  a  point  that 
is  very  often  missed  —  in  proportion  as  the 
dramatic  struggle  becomes  more  vital  and  mo- 
mentous, the  audience  demands  more  and  more  that 
it  shall  be  fought  out  fairly,  and  that  even  the 
characters  it  favors  shall  receive  no  undeserved  as- 
sistance from  the  dramatist.  This  instinct  of  the 
crowd  —  the  instinct  by  which  its  demand  for  fair- 
ness is  proportioned  to  the  importance  of  the  strug- 
gle —  may  be  studied  by  any  follower  of  profes- 


THE  HAPPY  ENDING  173 

sional  base-ball.  The  spectators  at  a  ball-game 
are  violently  partisan  and  always  want  the  home 
team  to  win.  In  any  unimportant  game  —  if  the 
opposing  teams,  for  instance,  have  no  chance  to 
win  the  pennant  —  the  crowd  is  glad  of  any  ques- 
tionable decision  by  the  umpires  that  favors  the 
home  team.  But  in  any  game  in  which  the  pen- 
nant is  at  stake,  a  false  or  bad  decision,  even 
though  it  be  rendered  in  favor  of  the  home  team, 
will  be  received  with  hoots  of  disapproval.  The 
crowd  feels,  in  such  a  case,  that  it  cannot  fully  en- 
joy the  sense  of  victory  unless  the  victory  be 
fairly  won.  For  the  same  reason,  when  any  im- 
portant play  which  sets  out  to  end  unhappih*  is 
given  a  sudden  twist  which  brings  about  an  arbi- 
trary happy  ending,  the  audience  is  likely  to  be 
displeased.  And  there  is  yet  another  reason  for 
this  displeasure.  An  audience  may  enjoy  both 
farce  and  comedy  without  believing  them ;  but  it 
cannot  fully  enjoy  a  serious  play  unless  it  believes 
the  story.  In  the  serious  drama,  an  ending,  to 
be  enjoyable,  must  be  credible;  in  other  words,  it 
must,  for  the  sake  of  human  interest,  satisfy  the 
strict  logic  of  art.  We  arrive,  therefore,  at  the 
paradox  that  although,  in  the  final  act,  the  comic 
dramatist  may  achieve  popularity  by  renouncing 
the  laws  of  art,  tlic  serious  dramatist  can  achieve 
popularity  only  by  adhering  rigidly  to  a  pattern 
of  artistic  truth. 


174   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

This  is  a  point  that  is  rarely  understood  by  peo- 
ple who  look  at  the  general  question  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  box-office ;  they  seldom  appreciate 
the  fact  that  a  serious  play  which  logically  de- 
mands an  unhappy  ending  will  make  more  money 
if  it  is  planned  in  accordance  with  the  sternest  laws 
of  art  than  if  it  is  given  an  arbitrary  happy  end- 
ing in  which  the  audience  cannot  easily  believe. 
The  public  wants  to  be  pleased,  but  it  wants  even 
more  to  be  satisfied.  In  the  early  eighteenth  cen- 
tury both  King  Lear  and  Romeo  and  Juliet  were 
played  with  fabricated  happy  endings ;  but  the  his- 
tory of  these  plays,  before  and  after,  proves  that 
the  alteration,  considered  solely  from  the  business 
standpoint,  was  an  error.  And  yet,  after  all  these 
centuries  of  experience,  our  modern  managers  still 
remain  afraid  of  serious  plays  which  lead  logically 
to  unhappy  terminations,  and,  because  of  the 
power  of  their  position,  exercise  an  influence  over 
writers  for  the  stage  which  is  detrimental  to  art 
and  even  contrary  to  the  demands  of  human  in- 
terest. 


IV 

THE   BOUNDARIES  OF  APPROBATION 

When  Hamlet  warned  the  strolling  players 
against  making  the  judicious  grieve,  and  when  he 
lamented  that  a  certain  play  had  proved  caviare  to 
the  general,  he  fixed  for  the  dramatic  critic  the  lower 
and  the  upper  bound  for  catholicity  of  approba- 
tion. But  between  these  outer  boundaries  lie  many 
different  precincts  of  appeal.  The  Txeo  Orphans 
of  Dennery  and  The  Misanthrope  of  Moliere  aim 
to  interest  two  different  types  of  audience.  To 
say  that  The  Two  Orphans  is  a  bad  play  because 
its  appeal  is  not  so  intellectual  as  that  of  The 
Misanthrope  would  be  no  less  a  solecism  than  to 
say  that  The  Misanthrope  is  a  bad  play  because  its 
appeal  is  not  so  emotional  as  that  of  The  Two 
Orphans.  The  truth  is  that  both  stand  within  the 
boundaries  of  approbation.  The  one  makes  a 
primitive  appeal  to  the  emotions,  without,  how- 
ever, grieving  the  judicious;  and  the  other  makes 
a  refined  appeal  to  the  intelligence,  without,  how- 
ever, subtly  bewildering  the  mind  of  the  general 
spectator. 

Since  success  is  to  a  play  the  breath  of  life,  it  is 

175 


176   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

necessary  that  the  dramatist  should  please  his  pub- 
lic; but  in  admitting  this,  we  must  remember  that 
in  a  city  so  vast  and  varied  as  New  York  there  are 
many  different  publics,  which  are  willing  to  be 
pleased  in  many  different  ways.  The  dramatist 
with  a  new  theme  in  his  head  may,  before  he  sets 
about  the  task  of  building  and  writing  his  play, 
determine  imaginatively  the  degree  of  emotional 
and  intellectual  equipment  necessary  to  the  sort  of 
audience  best  fitted  to  appreciate  that  theme. 
Thereafter,  if  he  build  and  write  for  that  audience 
and  that  alone,  and  if  he  do  his  work  sufficiently 
well,  he  may  be  almost  certain  that  his  play  will 
attract  the  sort  of  audience  he  has  demanded ;  for 
any  good  play  can  create  its  own  public  by  the 
natural  process  of  selecting  from  the  whole  vast 
theatre-going  population  the  kind  of  auditors  it 
needs.  That  problem  of  the  dramatist  to  please 
his  public  reduces  itself,  therefore,  to  two  very 
simple  phases:  first,  to  choose  the  sort  of  public 
that  he  wants  to  please,  and  second,  to  direct  his 
appeal  to  the  mental  make-up  of  the  audience  which 
he  himself  has  chosen.  This  task,  instead  of  ham- 
pering the  dramatist,  should  serve  really  to  assist 
him,  because  it  requires  a  certain  concentration  of 
purpose  and  consistency  of  mood  throughout  his 
work. 

This  concentration  and  consistency  of  purpose 
and  of  mood  may  be  symbolised  by  the  figure  of 


THE  BOUNDARIES  OF  APPROBATION      177 

aiming  straight  at  a  predetermined  target.  In  the 
years  when  firearms  were  less  perfected  than  they 
are  at  present,  it  was  necessary,  in  shooting  with 
a  rifle,  to  aim  lower  than  the  mark,  in  order  to 
allow  for  an  upward  kick  at  the  discharge ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  was  necessary,  in  shooting 
with  heav3'  ordnance,  to  aim  higher  than  the  mark, 
in  order  to  allow  for  a  parabolic  droop  of  the 
cannon-ball  in  transit.  Many  dramatists,  in  their 
endeavor  to  score  a  hit,  still  employ  these  compro- 
mising tricks  of  marksmanship:  some  aim  lower 
than  the  judgment  of  their  auditors,  others  aim 
higher  than  their  taste.  But,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  under  present  metropolitan  conditions  the 
dramatist  may  pick  his  own  auditors,  this  aiming 
below  them  or  above  them  seems  (to  quote  Sir 
Thomas  Browne)  "  a  vanity  out  of  date  and  super- 
annuated piece  of  folly."  While  granting  the 
dramatist  entire  liberty  to  select  the  level  of  his 
mark,  the  critic  may  justly  demand  that  he  shall 
aim  directly  at  it,  without  allowing  his  hand  ever 
to  droop  down  or  flutter  upward.  That  he  should 
not  aim  below  it  is  self-evident:  there  can  be  no 
possible  excuse  for  making  the  judicious  grieve. 
But  that  he  should  not  aim  above  it  is  a  proposition 
less  likely  to  be  accepted  off'-hand  by  the  fastidious : 
Hamlet  spoke  with  a  regretful  fondness  of  that 
particular  play  which  hud  proved  caviare  to  the 
general.     It  is,  of  course,  nobler  to  shoot  over  the 


178   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

mark  than  to  shoot  under  it;  but  it  is  nobler  still 
to  shoot  directly  at  it.  Surely  there  lies  a  simple 
truth  beneath  this  paradox  of  words :  —  it  is  a 
higher  aim  to  aim  straight  than  to  aim  too  high. 

If  a  play  be  so  constituted  as  to  please  its  con- 
sciously selected  auditors,  neither  grieving  their 
judgment  by  striking  lower  than  their  level  of  ap- 
preciation, nor  leaving  them  unsatisfied  by  snob- 
bishly feeding  them  caviare  when  they  have  asked 
for  bread,  it  must  be  judged  a  good  play  for  its 
purpose.  The  one  thing  needful  is  that  it  shall 
neither  insult  their  intelligence  nor  trifle  with  their 
taste.  In  view  of  the  many  different  theatre-going 
publics  and  their  various  demands,  the  critic,  in 
order  to  be  just,  must  be  endowed  with  a  sym- 
pathetic versatility  of  approbation.  He  should 
take  as  his  motto  those  judicious  sentences  with 
which  the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table 
prefaced  his  remarks  upon  the  seashore  and  the 
mountains :  — "  No,  I  am  not  going  to  say  which 
is  best.  The  one  where  your  place  is  is  the  best  for 
you." 


IMITATION  AND  SUGGESTION  IN  THE 

DRAMA 

There  is  an  old  saying  that  it  takes  two  to 
make  a  bargain  or  a  quarrel;  and,  similarly,  it 
takes  two  groups  of  people  to  make  a  play, — 
those  whose  minds  are  active  behind  the  footlights, 
and  those  whose  minds  are  active  in  the  auditorium. 
We  go  to  the  theatre  to  enjoy  ourselves,  rather 
than  to  enjoy  the  actors  or  the  author;  and  though 
we  may  be  deluded  into  thinking  that  we  are  in- 
terested mainly  by  the  ideas  of  the  dramatist  or  the 
imagined  emotions  of  the  people  on  the  stage,  we 
really  derive  our  chief  enjoyment  from  such  ideas 
and  emotions  of  our  own  as  are  called  into  being 
by  the  observance  of  the  mimic  strife  behind  the 
footlights.  The  only  thing  in  life  that  is  really 
enjoyable  is  what  takes  place  within  ourselves;  it  is  l^' 

our  own  experience,  of  thought  or  of  emotion,  that 
constitutes  for  us  the  only  fixed  and  memorable 
reality  amid  the  shifting  shadows  of  the  years; 
and  the  experience  of  anybody  else,  either  actual 
or  imaginary,  touches  us  as  true  and  permanent 
only  when  it  calls  forth  an  answering  imagination 

179 


180   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

of  our  own.  Each  of  us,  in  going  to  the  theatre, 
carries  with  him,  in  his  own  mind,  the  real  stage 
on  which  the  two  hours'  traffic  is  to  be  enacted; 
and  what  passes  behind  the  foothghts  is  efficient 
only  in  so  far  as  it  calls  into  activity  that  im- 
manent potential  clash  of  feelings  and  ideas  within 
our  brain.  It  is  the  proof  of  a  bad  play  that  it 
permits  us  to  regard  it  with  no  awakening  of  mind ; 
we  sit  and  stare  over  the  footlights  with  a  brain 
that  remains  blank  and  unpopulated;  we  do  not 
create  within  our  souls  that  real  play  for  which  the 
actual  is  only  the  occasion;  and  since  we  remain 
empty  of  imagination,  we  find  it  impossible  to 
enjoy  ourselves.  Our  feeling  in  regard  to  a  bad 
play  might  be  phrased  in  the  familiar  sentence, — 
"  This  is  all  very  well ;  but  what  is  it  to  me?  " 
The  piece  leaves  us  unresponsive  and  aloof;  we 
miss  that  answering  and  tallying  of  mind  —  to 
use  Whitman's  word  —  which  is  the  soul  of  all  ex- 
perience of  worthy  art.  But  a  good  play  helps  us 
'^  to  enjoy  ourselves  by  making  us  aware  of  our- 
selves; it  forces  us  to  think  and  feel.  We  may 
think  differently  from  the  dramatist,  or  feel  emo- 
tions quite  dissimilar  from  those  of  the  imagined 
people  of  the  story ;  but,  at  any  rate,  our  minds 
are  consciously  aroused,  and  the  period  of  our  at- 
tendance at  the  play  becomes  for  us  a  period  of 
real  experience.  The  only  thing,  then,  that  counts 
in  theatre-going  is  not  what  the  play  can  give  us, 


IMITATION  AND  SUGGESTION        181 

but  what  we  can  give  the  play.  The  enjoyment 
of  the  drama  is  subjective,  and  the  province  of  the 
dramatist  is  merely  to  appeal  to  the  subtle  sense  of 
life  that  is  latent  in  ourselves. 

There  are,  in  the  main,  two  ways  in  which  this 
appeal  may  be  made  effectively.  The  first  is  by 
imitation  of  what  we  have  already  seen  around  us ; 
and  the  second  is  by  suggestion  of  what  we  have 
already  experienced  within  us.  We  have  seen  peo- 
ple who  were  like  Hedda  Gabler;  we  have  been 
people  who  were  like  Hamlet.  The  drama  of  facts 
stimulates  us  like  our  daily  intercourse  with  the 
environing  world;  the  drama  of  ideas  stimulates  us 
like  our  mystic  midnight  hours  of  solitary  musing. 
Of  the  drama  of  imitation  we  demand  that  it  shall 
remain  appreciably  within  the  limits  of  our  own 
actual  observation ;  it  must  deal  with  our  own  coun- 
try and  our  own  time,  and  must  remind  us  of  our 
daily  inference  from  the  affairs  we  see  busy  all 
about  us.  The  drama  of  facts  cannot  be  trans- 
planted; it  cannot  be  made  in  France  or  Gennany 
and  remade  in  America ;  it  is  localised  in  place  and 
time,  and  has  no  potency  beyond  the  bounds  of  its 
locality.  But  the  drama  of  suggestion  is  unlim- 
ited in  its  possibilities  of  appeal;  ideas  are  without 
date,  and  burst  the  bonds  of  locality  and  language. 
Americans  may  see  the  ancient  Greek  drama  of 
CEdipus  Kin^  played  in  modem  French  by  Mounet- 
Sully,  and  may  experience  thereby  that  inner  over- 


182   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

whelming  sense  of  the  subhme  which  is  more  real 
than  the  recognition  of  any  simulated  actuality. 

The  distinction  between  the  two  sources  of  ap- 
peal in  drama  may  be  made  a  little  more  clear  by 
an  illustration  from  the  analogous  art  of  literature. 
When  Whitman,  in  his  poem  on  Crossing  Brooklyn 
Ferry,  writes,  "  Crowds  of  men  and  women  attired 
in  the  usual  costumes !  ",  he  reminds  us  of  the  envi- 
ronment of  our  daily  existence,  and  may  or  may 
not  call  forth  within  us  some  recollection  of  experi- 
ence. In  the  latter  event,  his  utterance  is  a  failure ; 
in  the  former,  he  has  succeeded  in  stimulating  ac- 
tivity of  mind  by  the  process  of  setting  before  us 
a  reminiscence  of  the  actual.  But  when,  in  the 
Song  of  Myself,  he  writes,  "  We  found  our  own, 
O  my  Soul,  in  the  calm  and  cool  of  the  daybreak," 
he  sets  before  us  no  imitation  of  habituated  ex- 
ternality, but  in  a  flash  reminds  us  by  suggestion 
of  so  much,  that  to  recount  the  full  experience 
thereof  would  necessitate  a  volume.  That  second 
sentence  may  well  keep  us  busy  for  an  evening, 
alive  in  recollection  of  uncounted  hours  of  calm 
wherein  the  soul  has  ascended  to  recognition  of  its 
universe ;  the  first  sentence  we  may  dismiss  at  once, 
because  it  does  not  make  anything  important  hap- 
pen in  our  consciousness. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  majority  of  the 
plays  now  shown  in  our  theatres  do  not  stimulate 
us  to  any  responsive  activity  of  mind,  and  there- 


IMITATION  AND  SUGGESTION        183 

fore  do  not  permit  us,  in  any  real  sense,  to  enjoy 
ourselves.  But  those  that,  in  a  measure,  do  suc- 
ceed in  this  prime  endeavor  of  dramatic  art  may 
readily  be  grouped  into  two  classes,  according  as 
their  basis  of  appeal  is  imitation  or  suggestion. 


VI 

HOLDING   THE    MIRROR    UP    TO    NATURE 

Doubtless  no  one  would  dissent  from  Hamlet's 
dictum  that  the  purpose  of  playing  is  "  to  hold, 
as  't  were,  the  mirror  up  to  nature  " ;  but  this  state- 
ment is  so  exceedingly  simple  that  it  is  rather  diffi- 
cult to  understand.  What  special  kind  of  mirror 
did  that  wise  dramatic  critic  have  in  mind  when 
he  coined  this  memorable  phrase?  Surely  he  could 
not  have  intended  the  sort  of  flat  and  clear  reflec- 
tor by  the  aid  of  which  we  comb  our  hair;  for  a 
mirror  such  as  this  would  represent  life  with  such 
sedulous  exactitude  that  we  should  gain  no  ad- 
vantage from  looking  at  the  reflection  rather  than 
at  the  life  itself  which  was  reflected.  If  I  wish  to 
see  the  tobacco  jar  upon  my  writing  table,  I  look 
at  the  tobacco  jar:  I  do  not  set  a  mirror  up  behind 
it  and  look  into  the  mirror.  But  suppose  I  had 
a  magic  mirror  which  would  reflect  that  jar  in  such 
a  way  as  to  show  me  not  only  its  outside  but  also 
the  amount  of  tobacco  shut  within  it. '  In  this 
latter  case,  a  glance  at  the  represented  image  would 
spare  me  a  more  laborious  examination  of  the  ac-^ 
tual  object. 

184 


THE  MAGIC  MIRROR  185 

Now  Hamlet  must  have  had  in  mind  some  magic 
mirror  such  as  this,  which,  by  its  manner  of  re- 
flecting life,  would  render  life  more  intelligible. 
(jGoethe  once  remarked  that  the  sole  excuse  for  the 
existence  of  works  of  art  is  that  they  are  different 
from  the  works  of  nature,  j  If  the  theatre  showed 
us  only  what  we  see  in  life  itself,  there  would  be 
no  sense  at  all  in  going  to  the  theatre.  Assuredly 
it  must  show  us  more  than  that;  and  it  is  an  in- 
teresting paradox  that  in  order  to  show  us  more 
it  has  to  show  us  less.  The  magic  mirror  must  re- 
fuse to  reflect  the  irrelevant  and  non-essential,  and 
must  thereby  concentrate  attention  on  the  pertinent 
and  essential  phases  of  nature.  That  mirror  is  the 
best  that  reflects  the  least  which  does  not  matter, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  reflects  most  clearly  that 
which  does.  In  actual  life,  truth  is  buried  beneath 
a  bewilderment  of  facts.  Most  of  us  seek  it  vainly, 
as  we  might  seek  a  needle  in  a  haystack.  In  this 
proverbial  search  we  should  derive  no  assistance 
from  looking  at  a  reflection  of  the  haystack  in  an 
ordinary  mirror.  But  imagine  a  glass  so  en- 
dowed with  a  selective  magic  that  it  would  not  re- 
flect hay  but  would  reflect  steel.  Then,  assuredly, 
there  would  be  a  valid  and  practical  reason  for 
holding  the  mirror  up  to  nature. 

The  only  real  triumph  for  an  artist  is  not  to  show 
us  a  haystack,  but  to  make  us  see  the  needle  buried 
in  it, —  not  to  reflect  the  trappings  and  the  suits  of 


186   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

life,  but  to  suggest  a  sense  of  that  within  which 
passeth  show.  To  praise  a  play  for  its  exactitude 
in  representing  facts  would  be  a  fallacy  of  criti- 
cism. VThe  important  question  is  not  how  nearly 
the  play  reflects  the  look  of  life,  but  how  much  it 
helps  the  audience  to  understand  life's  meaning.^ 
The  sceneless  stage  of  the  Elizabethan  As  You 
Like  It  revealed  more  meanings  than  our  modern 
scenic  forests  empty  of  Rosalind  and  Orlando. 
There  is  no  virtue  in  reflection  unless  there  be  some 
magic  in  the  mirror.  Certain  enterprising  mod- 
ern managers  permit  their  press  agents  to  pat  them 
on  the  back  because  they  have  set,  say,  a  locomo- 
tive on  the  stage ;  but  why  should  we  pay  two  dol- 
lars to  see  a  locomotive  in  the  theatre  when  we  may 
see  a  dozen  locomotives  in  the  Grand  Central  Sta- 
tion without  paying  anything  ?  Why,  indeed !  — 
unless  the  dramatist  contrives  to  reveal  an  imag- 
inable human  mystery  throbbing  in  the  palpitant 
heart  —  no,  not  of  the  locomotive,  but  of  the  loco- 
motive-engineer. That  is  something  that  we  could 
not  see  at  all  in  the  Grand  Central  Station,  unless 
we  were  endowed  with  eyes  as  penetrant  as  those 
of  the  dramatist  himself. 

But  not  only  must  the  drama  render  life  more 
comprehensible  by  discarding  the  irrelevant,  and 
attracting  attention  to  the  essential ;  it  must  also 
render  us  the  service  of  bringing  to  a  focus  that 
phase  of  life  it  represents.     The  mirror  which  the 


THE  MAGIC  MIRROR  187 

dramatist  holds  up  to  nature  should  be  a  concave 
mirror,  which  concentrates  the  rays  impinging  on 
it  to  a  luminous  focal  image.  Hamlet  was  too 
much  a  metaphysician  to  busy  his  mind  about  the 
simpler  science  of  physics ;  but  surely  this  figure 
of  the  concave  mirror,  with  its  phenomenon  of  con- 
centration, represents  most  suggestively  his  belief 
concerning  the  purpose  of  playing  and  of  plays. 
The  trouble  with  most  of  our  dramas  is  that  they 
render  scattered  and  incoherent  images  of  life; 
they  tell  us  many  unimportant  things,  instead  of 
telling  us  one  important  thing  in  many  ways. 
They  reveal  but  little,  because  they  reproduce  too 
much.  But  it  is  only  by  bringing  all  life  to  a 
focus  in  a  single  luminous  idea  that  it  is  possible, 
in  the  two  hours'  traffic  of  the  stage,  "  to  show 
virtue  her  own  feature,  scorn  her  own  image,  and 
the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and 
pressure." 

An  interesting  instance  of  how  a  dramatist,  by 
holding,  as  it  were,  a  concave  mirror  up  to  nature, 
may  concentrate  all  life  to  a  focus  in  a  single 
luminous  idea  is  afforded  by  that  justly  celebrated 
drama  entitled  El  Gran  Guleoto,  by  Don  Jose 
Echegaray.  This  play  was  first  produced  at  the 
Teatro  Espanol  on  March  19,  1881,  and  achieved 
a  triumph  that  soon  diffused  the  fame  of  its  au- 
thor, which  till  then  had  been  but  local,  beyond 
the  Pyrenees.     It  is  now  generally  recognised  as 


188   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

one  of  the  standard  monuments  of  the  modem  so- 
cial drama.  It  owes  its  eminence  mainly  to  the  un- 
flinching emphasis  which  it  casts  upon  a  single 
great  idea.     This  idea  is  suggested  in  Its  title. 

In  the  old  French  romance  of  Launcelot  of  the 
Lake,  it  was  Gallehault  who  first  prevailed  on 
Queen  Guinevere  to  give  a  kiss  to  Launcelot:  he 
was  thus  the  means  of  making  actual  their  poten- 
tial guilty  love.  His  name  thereafter,  like  that  of 
Pandarus  of  Troy,  became  a  symbol  to  designate 
a  go-between,  inciting  to  illicit  love.  In  the  fifth 
canto  of  the  Inferno,  Francesca  da  Rimini  narrates 
to  Dante  how  she  and  Paolo  read  one  day,  all  un- 
suspecting, the  romance  of  Launcelot ;  and  after 
she  tells  how  her  lover,  allured  by  the  suggestion  of 
the  story,  kissed  her  on  the  mouth  all  trembhng, 
she  adds, 

Galeotto  fu'I  libro  e  chi  lo  scrisse, 

which  may  be  translated,  "  The  book  and  the  au- 
thor of  it  performed  for  us  the  service  of  Galle- 
hault." Now  Echegaray,  desiring  to  retell  in 
modern  terms  the  old  familiar  story  of  a  man  and 
a  woman  who,  at  first  innocent  in  their  relationship, 
are  allured  by  unappreciable  degrees  to  the  sud- 
den realisation  of  a  great  passion  for  each  other, 
asked  himself  what  force  it  was,  in  modem  life, 
which  would  perform  for  them  most  tragically  the 
sinful  service  of  Gallehault,     Then  it  struck  him 


THE  MAGIC  MIRROR  189 

that  the  great  Gallehault  of  modem  life  —  El 
Gran  Galeoto  —  was  the  impalpable  power  of  gos- 
sip, the  suggestive  force  of  whispered  opinion,  the 
prurient  allurement  of  evil  tongues.  Set  all  society 
to  glancing  slyly  at  a  man  and  a  woman  whose  re- 
lation to  each  other  is  really  innocent,  start  the 
wicked  tongues  a-babbling,  and  you  will  stir  up 
a  whirlwind  which  will  blow  them  giddily  into 
each  other's  arms.  Thus  the  old  theme  might  be 
recast  for  the  purposes  of  modem  tragedy. 
Echegara}^  himself,  in  the  critical  prose  prologue 
which  he  prefixed  to  his  play,  comments  upon  the 
fact  that  the  chief  character  and  main  motive  force 
of  the  entire  drama  can  never  appear  upon  the 
stage,  except  in  hints  and  indirections ;  because  the 
great  Gallehault  of  his  story  is  not  any  particular 
person,  but  rather  all  slanderous  society  at  large. 
As  he  expresses  it,  the  villain-hero  of  his  drama  is 
Todo  el  mundo, —  everybody,  or  all  the  world. 

This,  obviously,  is  a  great  idea  for  a  modern 
social  drama,  because  it  concentrates  within  itself 
many  of  the  most  important  phases  of  the  per- 
ennial struggle  between  the  individual  and  society ; 
and  this  great  idea  is  embodied  with  direct,  un- 
wavering simplicity  in  the  story  of  the  play.  Don 
Julian,  a  rich  merchant  about  forty  years  of  age, 
is  ideally  married  to  Teodora,  a  beautiful  woman 
in  her  early  twenties,  who  adores  him.  He  is  a 
generous  and  kindly  man ;  and  upon  the  death  of 


190   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

an  old  and  honored  friend,  to  whose  assistance  in 
the  past  he  owes  his  present  fortune,  he  adopts 
into  his  household  the  son  of  this  friend,  Ernesto. 
Ernesto  is  twenty-six  years  old;  he  reads  poems 
and  writes  plays,  and  is  a  thoroughly  fine  fellow. 
He  feels  an  almost  filial  affection  for  Don  Julian 
and  a  wholesome  brotherly  friendship  for  Teodora. 
They,  in  turn,  are  beautifully  fond  of  him.  Nat- 
urally, he  accompanies  them  everywhere  in  the 
social  world  of  Madrid ;  he  sits  in,  their  box  at  the 
opera,  acting  as  Teodora's  escort  when  her  hus- 
band is  detained  by  business ;  and  he  goes  walking 
with  Teodora  of  an  afternoon.  Society,  with 
sinister  imagination,  begins  to  look  askance  at  the 
triangulated  household;  tongues  begin  to  wag; 
and  gossip  grows.  Tidings  of  the  evil  talk  about 
town  are  brought  to  Don  Julian  by  his  brother, 
Don  Severo,  who  advises  that  Ernesto  had  better 
be  requested  to  live  in  quarters  of  his  own.  Don 
Julian  nobly  repels  this  suggestion  as  insulting ; 
but  Don  Severo  persists  that  only  by  such  a  course 
may  the  family  name  be  rendered  unimpeachable 
upon  the  public  tongue. 

Ernesto,  himself,  to  still  the  evil  rumors,  goes  to 
live  in  a  studio  alone.  This  simple  move  on  his 
part  suggests  to  everybody  —  todo  el  mundo  — 
that  he  must  have  had  a  real  motive  for  making  it. 
Gossip  increases,  instead  of  diminishing;  and  the 


THE  MAGIC  MIRROR  191 

emotions  of  Teodora,  Don  Julian,  and  himself  are 
stirred  to  the  point  of  nervous  tensity.  Don 
Julian,  in  spite  of  his  own  sweet  reasonableness, 
begins  subtly  to  wonder  if  there  could  be,  by  any 
possibility,  an}^  basis  for  his  brother's  vehemence. 
Don  Severo's  wife,  Dona  Mercedes,  repeats  the 
talk  of  the  town  to  Teodora,  and  turns  her  im- 
agination inward,  till  it  falters  in  self-questionings. 
Similarly  the  great  Gallehault, —  which  is  the  word 
of  all  the  world, —  whispers  unthinkable  and  tragic 
possibilities  to  the  poetic  and  self-searching  mind 
of  Ernesto.  He  resolves  to  seek  release  in  Argen- 
tina. But  before  he  can  sail  away,  he  overhears, 
in  a  fashionable  cafe,  a  remark  which  casts  a  slur 
on  Teodora,  and  strikes  the  speaker  of  the  insult 
in  the  face.  A  duel  is  forthwith  arranged,  to  take 
place  in  a  vacant  studio  adjacent  to  Ernesto's. 
When  Don  Julian  learns  about  it,  he  is  troubled  by 
the  idea  that  another  man  should  be  fighting  for 
his  wife,  and  rushes  forthwith  to  wreak  vengeance 
himself  on  the  traducer.  Teodora  hears  the  news ; 
and  in  order  to  prevent  both  her  husband  and 
Ernesto  from  endangering  their  lives,  she  rushes 
to  Ernesto's  rooms  to  urge  him  to  forestall  hos- 
tilities. Meanwhile  her  husband  encounters  the 
slanderer,  and  is  severely  wounded.  He  is  carried 
to  Ernesto's  studio.  Hearing  people  coming, 
Teodora  hides  herself  in  Ernesto's  bedroom,  where 


192   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

she  is  discovered  by  her  husband's  attendants. 
Don  Julian,  wounded  and  enfevered,  now  at  last 
believes  the  worst. 

Ernesto  seeks  and  slays  Don  Julian's  assailant. 
But  now  the  whole  world  credits  what  the  whole 
world  has  been  whispering.  In  vain  Ernesto  and 
Teodora  protest  their  innocence  to  Don  Severo  and 
to  Dona  Mercedes.  In  vain  they  plead  with  the 
kindly  and  noble  man  they  both  revere  and  love. 
Don  Julian  curses  them,  and  dies  believing  in  their 
guilt.  Then  at  last,  when  they  find  themselves 
cast  forth  isolate  by  the  entire  world,  their  com- 
mon tragic  loneliness  draws  them  to  each  other. 
They  are  given  to  each  other  by  the  world.  The 
insidious  purpose  of  the  great  Gallehault  has  been 
accomplished ;  and  Ernesto  takes  Teodora  for  his 
own. 


VII 


BLANK  VERSE  ON  THE  CONTEMPORARY 

STAGE 

It  is  amazing  how  man}'^  people  seem  to  think 
that  the  subsidiary  fact  that  a  certain  play  is 
written  in  verse  makes  it  of  necessity  dramatic 
literature.  Whether  or  not  a  play  is  literature 
depends  not  upon  the  medium  of  utterance  the 
characters  may  use,  but  on  whether  or  not  the  play 
sets  forth  a  truthful  view  of  some  momentous 
theme;  and  whether  or  not  a  play  is  drama  de- 
pends not  upon  its  trappings  and  its  suits,  but  on 
whether  or  not  it  sets  forth  a  tense  and  vital  strug- 
gle between  individual  human  wills.  The  Second 
Mrs.  Tanqueray  fulfils  both  of  these  conditions 
and  is  dramatic  literature,  while  the  poetic  plays 
of  Mr.  Stephen  Phillips  stand  upon  a  lower  plane, 
both  as  drama  and  as  literature,  even  though  they 
are  written  in  the  most  interesting  blank  verse 
that  has  been  developed  since  Tennyson.  Shore 
Acres,  which  was  written  in  New  England  dialect, 
was,  I  think,  dramatic  literature.  Mr.  Percy 
Mackaye's  Jeanne  d'Arc,  I  think,  was  not,  even 

193 


194   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

though  in  merely  hterary  merit  it  revealed  many 
excellent  qualities. 

Jeanne  d'Arc  was  not  a  play ;  it  was  a  narrative 
in  verse,  with  lyric  interludes.     It  was  a  thing  to 
be  read  rather  than  to  be  acted.     It  was  a  charm- 
ing  poetic   story,   but   it   was   not   an   interesting 
contribution  to  the  stage.     Most  people  felt  this, 
I  am   sure;  but  most  people  lacked  the   courage 
of  their  feeling,  and  feared  to  confess  that  they 
were   wearied   by    the   piece,    lest   they    should   be 
suspected  of  lack  of  taste.     I  believe  thoroughly 
in  the  possibility  of  poetic  drama  at  the  present 
day ;  but  it  must  be  drama  first  and  foremost,  and 
poetry    only    secondarily.     Mr.    Mackaye,    like    a 
great  many  other  aspirants,  began  at  the  wrong 
end:  he  made  his  piece  poetry  first  and  foremost, 
and  drama  only   incidentally.     And  I  think  that 
the  only  way  to  prepare  the  public  for  true  poetic 
drama  is  to  educate  the  public's  faith  in  its  right 
to  be  bored  in  the  theatre  by  poetry  that  is  not 
dramatic.     Performances    of    Pippa    Passes    and 
The  Sunken  Bell   exert   a  very   unpropitious   in- 
fluence upon  the  mood  of  the  average  theatre-goer. 
These  poems  are  not  plays ;  and  the  innocent  spec- 
tator, being  told  that  they  are,  is  made  to  believe 
that  poetic  drama  must  be  necessarily  a  soporific 
thing.     And   when   this   behef   is   once   lodged   in 
his  uncritical  mind,  it  is  difficult  to  dispel  it,  even 
with  a  long  course  of  Othello  and  Hamlet.     Paolo 


BLANK  VERSE  ON  THE  STAGE        195 

and  Francesca  was  a  good  poem,  but  a  bad  play ; 
and  its  weakness  as  a  play  was  not  excusable  by 
its  beauty  as  a  poem.  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  was 
a  good  play,  first  of  all,  and  a  good  poem  also; 
and  even  a  public  that  fears  to  seem  Philistine 
knew  the   difference   instinctively. 

Mrae.  Nazimova  has  been  quoted  as  saying  that 
she  would  never  act  a  play  in  verse,  because  in 
speaking  verse  she  could  not  be  natural.  But 
whether  an  actor  may  be  natural  or  not  depends 
entireh'  upon  the  kind  of  verse  the  author  has 
given  him  to  speak.  Three  kinds  of  blank  verse 
are  known  in  English  literature, —  lyric,  narra- 
tive, and  dramatic.  By  lyric  blank  verse  I  mean 
verse  like  that  of  Tennyson's  Tears,  Idle  Tears; 
by  narrative,  verse  like  that  of  Mr.  Stephen 
Phillips's  Marpessa  or  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the 
King;  by  dramatic,  verse  like  that  of  the  murder 
scene  in  Macbeth.  The  Elizabethan  playwrights 
wrote  all  three  kinds  of  blank  verse,  because  their 
drama  was  a  platform  drama  and  admitted  nan-a- 
tive  and  lyric  as  well  as  dramatic  elements.  But 
because  of  the  development  in  modem  times  of 
the  physical  conditions  of  the  theatre,  we  have 
grown  to  exclude  from  the  drama  all  non-dramatic 
elements.  Narrative  and  lyric,  for  their  own 
sakes,  have  no  place  upon  the  modem  stage ;  they 
may  be  introduced  only  for  a  definite  dramatic 
purpose.     Only   one  of  the  three  kinds  of  blank 


196   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

verse  that  the  Elizabethan  playwrights  used  is, 
therefore,  serviceable  on  the  modem  stage.  But 
our  poets,  because  of  inexperience  in  the 
theatre,  insist  on  writing  the  other  two.  For  this 
reason,  and  for  this  reason  only,  do  modern  actors 
like  Mme.  Nazimova  complain  of  plays  In  verse. 

Mr.  Percy  Mackaye's  verse  in  Jeanne  d'Arc,  for 
example,  was  at  certain  moments  lyric,  at  most 
moments  narrative,  and  scarcely  ever  dramatic  in 
technical  mold  and  manner.  It  resembled  the 
verse  of  Tennyson  more  nearly  than  it  resembled 
that  of  any  other  master ;  and  Tennyson  was  a 
narrative,  not  a  dramatic,  poet.  It  set  a  value 
on  literary  expression  for  its  own  sake  rather  than 
for  the  purpose  of  the  play ;  it  was  replete  with 
elaborately  lovely  phrases ;  and  it  admitted  the  in- 
versions customary  in  verse  intended  for  the  printed 
page.  But  I  am  firm  in  the  belief  that  verse 
written  for  the  modern  theatre  should  be  absolutely 
simple.  It  should  incorporate  no  words,  however 
beautiful,  that  are  not  used  in  the  daily  conver- 
sation of  the  average  theatre-goer;  it  should  set 
these  words  only  in  their  natural  order,  and  admit 
no  inversions  whatever  for  the  sake  of  the  line; 
and  it  should  set  a  value  on  expression,  never 
for  its  own  sake,  but  solely  for  the  sake  of  the 
dramatic  purpose  to  be  accomplished  in  the  scene. 
Verse  such  as  this  would  permit  of  every  rhythmi- 
cal   variation    known    in    EngHsh    prosody,    and 


BLANK  VERSE  ON  THE  STAGE        197 

through  the  appeal  of  its  rhythm  would  offer  the 
dramatist  opportunities  for  emotional  effect  that 
prose  would  not  allow  him ;  but  at  the  same  time 
it  could  be  spoken  with  entire  naturalness  by  actors 
as  ultra-modem  as  Mme.  Nazimova, 

Mr.  Stephen  Phillips  has  not  learned  this  lesson, 
and  the  verse  that  he  has  written  in  his  plays  is 
the  same  verse  that  he  used  in  his  narratives, 
Marpessa  and  Christ  in  Hades.  It  is  great  narra- 
tive blank  verse,  but  for  dramatic  uses  it  is  too 
elaborate.  Mr.  Mackaye  has  started  out  on  the 
same  mistaken  road:  in  Jeanne  cTArc  his  prosody 
is  that  of  closet-verse,  not  theatre-verse.  The 
poetic  drama  will  be  doomed  to  extinction  on  the 
modem  stage  unless  our  poets  learn  the  lesson  of 
simplicity.  I  shall  append  some  lines  of  Shake- 
speare's to  illustrate  the  ideal  of  directness  toward 
which  our  latter-day  poetic  dramatists  should 
strive.  When  Lear  holds  the  dead  Cordelia  in  his 
arms,  he  says: 

Her  voice  was  ever  soft, 
Gentle,  and  low, —  an  excellent  thing  in  woman. 

Could  any  actor  be  unnatural  in  speaking  words 
so  simple,  so  familiar,  and  so  naturally  set.'' 
Viola  says  to  Orsino : 

My  father  had  a  daughter  loved  a  man, 
As  it  might  be,  perhaps,  were  I  woman, 
I  should  your  lordship. 


198   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Here  again  the  words  are  all  colloquial  and  are 
set  in  their  accustomed  order;  but  by  sheer  mas- 
tery of  rhythm  the  poet  contrives  to  express  the 
tremulous  hesitance  of  Viola's  mood  as  it  could 
not  be  expressed  in  prose.  There  is  a  need  for 
verse  upon  the  stage,  if  the  verse  be  simple  and 
colloquial ;  and  there  is  a  need  for  poetry  in  the 
drama,  provided  that  the  play  remain  the  thing 
and  the  poetry  contribute  to  the  play. 


VIII 

DRAMATIC    LITERATURE    AND    THEATRIC 
JOURNALISM 

One  reason  why  journalism  is  a  lesser  thing 
than  literature  is  that  it  subserves  the  tyranny 
of  timeliness.  It  narrates  the  events  of  the  day 
and  discusses  the  topics  of  the  hour,  for  the  sole 
reason  that  they  happen  for  the  moment  to  float 
uppermost  upon  the  current  of  human  experience. 
The  flotsam  of  this  current  may  occasionally  have 
dived  up  from  the  depths  and  may  give  a  glimpse 
of  some  underlying  secret  of  the  sea;  but  most 
often  it  merely  drifts  upon  the  surface,  indicative 
of  nothing  except  which  way  the  wind  lies.  What- 
ever topic  is  the  most  timely  to-day  is  doomed  to 
be  the  most  untimely  to-morrow.  Where  are  the 
journals  of  yester-year.''  Dig  them  out  of  dusty 
files,  and  all  that  they  say  will  seem  wearisomely 
old,  for  the  very  reason  that  when  it  was  written 
it  seemed  spiritedly  new.  Whatever  wears  a  date 
upon  its  forehead  will  soon  be  out  of  date.  The 
main  interest  of  news  is  newness ;  and  nothing 
slips  so  soon  behind  the  times  as  novelty. 

With  timeliness,  as  an   incentive,  literature  has 

199 


200   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

absolutely  no  concern.  Its  purpose  is  to  reveal 
what  was  and  is  and  evermore  shall  be.  It  can 
never  grow  old,  for  the  reason  that  it  has  never 
attempted  to  be  new.  Early  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  gentle  Elia  revolted  from  the  tyranny 
of  timeliness.  "  Hang  the  present  age !  ",  said  he, 
"  I'll  write  for  antiquity."  The  timely  utterances 
of  his  contemporaries  have  passed  away  with  the 
times  that  called  them  forth :  his  essays  live  peren- 
nially new.  In  the  dateless  realm  of  revelation, 
antiquity  joins  hands  with  futurity.  There  can 
be  nothing  either  new  or  old  in  any  utterance 
which  is  really  true  or  beautiful  or  right. 

In  considering  a  given  subject,  journalism  seeks 
to  discover  what  there  is  in  it  that  belongs  to 
the  moment,  and  literature  seeks  to  reveal  what 
there  is  in  it  that  belongs  to  eternity.  To  journal- 
ism facts  are  important  because  they  are  facts; 
to  literature  they  are  important  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  representative  of  recurrent  truths.  Lit- 
erature speaks  because  it  has  something  to  say: 
journalism  speaks  because  the  public  Avants  to  be 
talked  to.  Literature  is  an  emanation  from  an 
inward  impulse:  but  the  motive  of  journalism  is 
external;  it  is  fashioned  to  supply  a  demand  out- 
side itself.  It  is  frequently  said,  and  is  some- 
times believed,  that  the  province  of  journahsm  is 
to  mold  public  opinion;  but  a  consideration  of 
actual  conditions  indicates  rather  that  its  province 


LITERATURE  AND  JOURNALISM       201 

is  to  find  out  what  the  opinion  of  some  section 
of  the  public  is,  and  then  to  formulate  it  and 
express  it.  The  successful  journalist  tells  his 
readers  what  they  want  to  be  told.  He  becomes 
their  prophet  by  making  clear  to  them  what  they 
themselves  are  thinking.  He  influences  people  by 
agreeing  with  them.  In  doing  this  he  may  be 
entirely  sincere,  for  his  readers  may  be  right  and 
may  demand  from  him  the  statement  of  his  own 
most  serious  convictions ;  but  the  fact  remains 
that  his  motive  for  expression  is  centred  in  them 
instead  of  in  himself.  It  is  not  thus  that  literature 
is  motivated.  Literature  is  not  a  formulation  of 
public  opinion,  but  an  expression  of  personal  and 
particular  belief.  For  this  reason  it  is  more  likely 
to  be  true.  Public  opinion  is  seldom  so  important 
as  private  opinion.  Socrates  was  right  and  Athens 
wrong.  Very  frequently  the  multitude  at  the  foot 
of  the  mountain  are  worshiping  a  golden  calf, 
while  the  pro])het,  lonely  and  aloof  upon  the  sum- 
mit, is  hearkening  to  the  very  voice  of  God. 

The  journalist  is  limited  by  the  necessity  of 
catering  to  majorities;  he  can  never  experience 
the  felicity  of  Dr.  Stockmann,  who  felt  himself 
the  strongest  man  on  earth  because  he  stood  most 
alone.  It  may  sometimes  happen  that  the  major- 
ity is  right ;  but  in  that  case  the  agreement  of 
the  journalist  is  an  unnecessary  utterance.  The 
truth  was  known  before  he  spoke,  and  his  speak- 


202   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

ing  is  superfluous.  What  is  popularly  said  about 
the  educative  force  of  journalism  is,  for  the  most 
part,  baseless.  Education  occurs  when  a  man  is 
confronted  with  something  true  and  beautiful  and 
good  which  stimulates  to  active  life  that  "  bright 
effluence  of  bright  essence  increate  "  which  dwells 
within  him.  The  real  ministers  of  education  must 
be,  in  Emerson's  phrase,  "  lonely,  original,  and 
pure."  But  journalism  is  popular  instead  of 
lonely,  timely  rather  than  original,  and  expedient 
instead  of  pure.  Even  at  its  best,  journalism 
remains  an  enterprise;  but  literature  at  its  best 
becomes  no  less  than  a  religion. 

These  considerations  are  of  service  in  studying 
what  is  written  for  the  theatre  In  all  periods, 
certain  contributions  to  the  drama  have  been  jour- 
nalistic in  motive  and  intention,  while  certain  others 
have  been  literary.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  jour- 
nalism in  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes.  He  often 
chooses  topics  mainly  for  their  timeliness,  and 
gathers  and  says  what  happens  to  be  in  the  air. 
Many  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists,  like  Dekker 
and  Hey  wood  and  Middleton  for  example,  looked 
at  life  with  the  journalistic  eye.  They  collected  and 
disseminated  news.  They  were,  in  their  own  time, 
much  more  "  up  to  date  "  than  Shakespeare,  who 
chose  for  his  material  old  stories  that  nearly  every 
one  had  read.  Ben  Jonson's  Bartholomew  Fair  is 
glorified    journalism.     It    brims    over    with    con- 


LITERATURE  AND  JOURNALISM       202 

temporary  gossip  and  timely  witticisms.  There- 
fore it  is  out  of  date  to-day,  and  is  read  only  by 
people  who  wish  to  find  out  certain  facts  of  Lon- 
don life  in  Jonson's  time.  Hamlet  in  1602  was 
not  a  novelty ;  but  it  is  still  read  and  seen  by 
people  who  wish  to  find  out  certain  truths  of  life 
in  general. 

At  the  present  day,  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  contributions  to  the  theatre  must  be  classed 
and  judged  as  journalism.  Such  plays,  for  in- 
stance, as  The  Lion  and  the  Mouse  and  The  Man 
of  the  Hour  are  nothing  more  or  less  than  dram- 
atised newspapers.  A  piece  of  this  sort,  how- 
ever effective  it  may  be  at  the  moment,  must  soon 
suffer  the  fate  of  all  things  timely  and  slip  be- 
hind the  times.  Whenever  an  author  selects  a 
subject  because  he  thinks  the  public  wants  him 
to  talk  about  it,  instead  of  because  he  knows  he 
wants  to  talk  about  it  to  the  public,  his  motive 
is  journalistic  rather  than  literary.  A  timely 
topic  may,  however,  be  used  to  embody  a  truly 
literary  intention.  In  The  Witching  Hour,  for 
example,  journalism  was  lifted  into  literature  by 
the  sincerity  of  Mr.  Thomas's  conviction  that 
he  had  something  real  and  significant  to  say. 
The  play  became  important  because  there  was  a 
man  behind  it.  Individual  })ersonalIty  is  perhaps 
the  most  dateless  cf  all  phenomena.  The  fact 
of  any  great  individuality  once  accomplished  and 


204   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

achieved  becomes  contemporary  with  the  human 
race  and  sloughs  off  the  usual  limits  of  past  and 
future. 

Whatever  Mr.  J.  M.  Barrie  writes  is  literature, 
fcecause  he  dwells  isolate  amidst  the  world  in  a 
wise  minority  of  one.  The  things  that  he  says 
are  of  importance  because  nobody  else  could  have 
said  them.  He  has  achieved  individuality,  and 
thereby  passed  out  of  hearing  of  the  ticking  of 
clocks  into  an  ever-ever  land  where  dates  are  not 
and  consequently  epitaphs  can  never  be.  What 
he  utters  is  of  interest  to  the  public,  because  his 
motive  for  speaking  is  private  and  personal.  In- 
stead of  telling  people  what  they  think  that  they 
are  thinking,  he  tells  them  what  they  have  always 
known  but  think  they  have  forgotten.  He  per- 
forms, for  this  oblivious  generation,  the  service 
of  a  great  reminder.  He  lures  us  from  the  stri- 
dent and  factitious  world  of  which  we  read  daily 
in  the  first  pages  of  the  newspapers,  back  to  the 
serene  eternal  world  of  little,  nameless,  unremem- 
bered  acts  of  kindness  and  of  love.  He  educates  the 
many,  not  by  any  crass  endeavor  to  formulate  or 
even  to  mold  the  opinion  of  the  public,  but  by 
setting  simply  before  them  thoughts  which  do  often 
lie  too  deep  for  tears. 

The  distinguishing  trait  of  Mr.  Barrie's  genius 
is  that  he  looks  upon  life  with  the  simplicity  of 
a  child  and  sees  it  with  the  wisdom  of  a  woman. 


LITERATURE  AND  JOURNALISM       205 

He  has  a  woman's  subtlety  of  insight,  a  child's 
concreteness  of  imagination.  He  is  endowed  (to 
reverse  a  famous  phrase  of  Matthew  Arnold's) 
with  a  sweet  unreasonableness.  He  understands 
life  not  with  his  intellect  but  with  his  sensibilities. 
As  a  consequence,  he  is  familiar  with  all  the 
tremulous,  delicate  intimacies  of  human  nature 
that  every  woman  knows,  but  that  most  men 
glimpse  only  in  moments  of  exalted  sympathy  with 
some  wise  woman  whom  they  love.  His  insight 
has  that  absoluteness  which  is  beyond  the  reach 
of  intellect  alone.  He  knows  things  for  the  un- 
utterable woman's  reason, — "  because     .     .     ." 

But  with  this  feminine,  intuitive  understanding 
of  humanity,  Mr.  Barrie  combines  the  distinctively 
masculine  trait  of  being  able  to  communicate  the 
things  that  his  emotions  know.  The  greatest 
poets  would,  of  course,  be  women,  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  women  are  in  general  incapable  of 
revealing  through  the  medium  of  articulate  art 
the  very  things  they  know  most  deeply.  Most 
of  the  women  who  have  written  have  said  only 
the  lesser  phases  of  themselves ;  they  have  unwit- 
tingly withheld  their  deepest  and  most  poignant 
wisdom  because  of  a  native  reticence  of  speech. 
Many  a  time  they  reach  a  heaven  of  understand- 
ing shut  to  men ;  but  when  they  come  back,  they 
cannot  tell  the  world.  The  rare  artists  among 
women,    like    Sappho    and    Mrs.    Browning    and 


206   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Christina  Rossetti  and  Laurence  Hope,  in  their 
several  different  wa3^s,  have  gotten  themselves  ex- 
pressed onl}'  through  a  sublime  and  glorious  un- 
ashamedness.  As  HaAvthorne  once  remarked  very 
wisely,  women  have  achieved  art  only  when  they 
have  stood  naked  in  the  market-place.  But  men  in 
general  are  not  withheld  by  a  similar  hesitance 
from  saying  what  they  feel  most  deeply.  No 
woman  could  have  written  Mr.  Barrie's  biography 
of  his  mother;  but  for  a  man  like  him  there  is 
a  sort  of  sacredness  in  revealing  emotion  so  pri- 
vate as  to  be  expressible  only  in  the  purest 
speech.  Mr.  Barrie  was  apparently  born  into  the 
world  of  men  to  tell  us  what  our  mothers  and 
our  wives  would  have  told  us  if  they  could, —  what 
in  deep  moments  they  have  tried  to  tell  us,  trem- 
bling exquisitely  upon  the  verge  of  the  words. 
The  theme  of  his  best  work  has  always  been 
"  what  every  woman  knows."  In  expressing  this, 
he  has  added  to  the  permanent  recorded  knowl- 
edge of  humanity ;  and  he  has  thereby  lifted  his 
plays  above  the  level  of  theatric  journalism  to 
the  level  of  true  dramatic  literature. 


TX 

THE   INTENTION  OF  PERMANENCE 

At  Coney  Island  and  Atlantic  City  and  many 
other  seaside  resorts  whither  the  multitude  drifts 
to  drink  oblivion  of  a  day,  an  artist  may  be 
watched  at  work  modeling  images  in  the  sand. 
These  he  fashions  deftl}-,  to  entice  the  immediate 
pennies  of  the  crowd ;  but  when  his  wage  is  earned, 
he  leaves  his  statues  to  be  washed  away  by  the 
next  high  surging  of  the  tide.  The  sand-man 
is  often  a  good  artist;  let  us  suppose  he  were  a 
better  one.  Let  us  imagine  him  endowed  with 
a  brain  and  a  hand  on  a  par  with  those  of 
Pi'axiteles.  None  the  less  we  should  set  his  sea- 
shore images  upon  a  lower  plane  of  art  than  the 
monuments  Praxiteles  himself  hewed  out  of  mar- 
ble. This  we  should  do  instinctively,  with  no 
recourse  to  critical  theory ;  and  that  man  in  the 
multitude  who  knew  the  least  about  art  would  ex- 
press this  judgment  most  emphatically.  The  sim- 
ple reason  would  be  that  the  art  of  the  sand-man 
is  lacking  in  the  Intention  of  Permanence. 

The  Intention  of  Peniianencc,  whether  it  be 
conscious    or    subconscious    with    the    artist,    is    a 

207 


208   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

necessary  factor  of  the  noblest  art.  Many  of 
us  remember  the  Court  of  Honor  at  the  World's 
Columbian  Exposition,  at  Chicago  fifteen  years 
ago.  The  sculpture  was  good  and  the  architec- 
ture better.  In  chasteness  and  symmetry  of 
general  design,  in  spaciousness  fittingly  re- 
strained, in  simplicity  more  decorative  than  de- 
liberate decoration,  those  white  buildings  blooming 
into  gold  and  mirrored  in  a  calm  lagoon,  dazzled 
the  eye  and  delighted  the  aesthetic  sense.  And  yet, 
merely  because  they  lacked  the  Intention  of  Per- 
manence, they  failed  to  awaken  that  solemn  happy 
heartache  that  we  feel  in  looking  upon  the  tumbled 
ruins  of  some  ancient  temple.  We  could  never 
quite  forget  that  the  buildings  of  the  Court  of 
Honor  were  fabrics  of  frame  and  stucco  sprayed 
with  whitewash,  and  that  the  statues  were  kneaded 
out  of  plaster:  they  were  set  there  for  a  year,  not 
for  all  time.  But  there  is  at  Paestum  a  crumbled 
Doric  temple  to  Poseidon,  built  in  ancient  days 
to  remind  the  reverent  of  that  incalculable  vast- 
ness  that  tosses  men  we  know  not  whither.  It 
stands  forlorn  in  a  malarious  marsh,  yet  eternally 
within  hearing  of  the  unsubservient  surge.  Many 
of  its  massive  stones  have  tottered  to  the  earth ; 
and  irrelevant  little  birds  sing  in  nests  among 
the  capitals  and  mock  the  solemn  silence  that  the 
Greeks  ordained.  But  the  sacred  Intention  of 
Permanence   that   filled   and   thrilled   the   souls   of 


THE  INTENTION  OF  PERMANENCE       209 

those  old  builders  stands  triumphant  over  time ; 
and  if  only  a  single  devastated  column  stood  to 
mark  their  meaning,  it  would  yet  be  a  greater 
thing  than  the  entire  Court  of  Honor,  built  only 
to  commemorate  the  passing  of  a  year. 

In  all  the  arts  except  the  acted  drama,  it  is  easy 
even  for  the  laj'man  to  distinguish  work  which  is 
immediate  and  momentary  from  work  which  is 
permanent  and  real.  It  was  the  turbulent  un- 
tutored crowd  that  clamored  loudest  in  demand- 
ing that  the  Dewey  Arch  should  be  rendered  per- 
manent in  marble:  it  was  only  the  artists  and  the 
art-critics  who  were  satisfied  by  the  monument  in 
its  ephemeral  state  of  frame  and  plaster.  But 
in  the  drama,  the  layman  often  finds  it  difficult  to 
distinguish  between  a  piece  intended  merely  for 
immediate  entertainment  and  a  piece  that  incor- 
porates the  Intention  of  Permanence.  In  partic- 
ular he  almost  always  fails  to  distinguish  between 
what  is  really  a  character  and  what  is  merely 
an  acting  part.  When  a  dramatist  really  creates 
a  character,  he  imagines  and  projects  a  human 
being  so  truly  conceived  and  so  clearly  presented 
that  any  average  man  would  receive  the  impres- 
sion of  a  living  person  if  he  were  to  read  in 
manuscript  the  bare  lines  of  the  play.  But  when 
a  playright  merely  devises  an  acting  part,  he  does 
nothing  more  than  indicate  to  a  capable  actor  the 
possibility    of    so    comporting    himself    upon    the 


210   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

stage  as  to  convince  his  audience  of  humanity  in 
his  performance.  From  the  standpoint  of  criti- 
cism, the  main  difficulty  is  that  the  actor's  art 
may  frequently  obscure  the  dramatist's  lack  of 
art,  and  vice  versa,  so  that  a  mere  acting  part 
may  seem,  in  the  hands  of  a  capable  actor,  a 
real  character,  whereas  a  real  character  may  seem, 
in  the  hands  of  an  incapable  actor,  an  indifferent 
acting  part.  Rip  Van  Winkle,  for  example,  was 
a  wonderful  acting  part  for  Joseph  Jefferson ; 
but  it  was,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  dramatist, 
not  a  character  at  all,  as  any  one  may  see  who 
takes  the  trouble  to  read  the  play.  Beau  Brum- 
mel,  also,  was  an  acting  part  rather  than  a 
character.  And  yet  the  layman,  under  the  imme- 
diate spell  of  the  actor's  representative  art,  is 
tempted  in  such  cases  to  ignore  that  the  dramatist 
has  merely  modeled  an  image  in  the  sand. 

Likewise,  on  a  larger  scale,  the  layman  habit- 
ually fails  to  distinguish  between  a  mere  theatric 
entertainment  and  a  genuine  drama.  A  genuine 
drama  always  reveals  through  its  imagined  strug- 
gle of  contesting  wills  some  eternal  truth  of  human 
life,  and  illuminates  some  real  phases  of  human 
character.  But  a  theatric  entertainment  may 
present  merely  a  deftly  fabricated  struggle  be- 
tween puppets,  wherein  the  art  of  the  actor  is 
given  momentary  exercise.  To  return  to  our  com- 
parison, a  genuine  drama  is  carved  out  of  marble, 


THE  INTENTION  OF  PERMANENCE       211 

and  incorporates,  consciously  or  not,  the  Intention 
of  Pennanence;  whereas  a  mere  theatric  entertain- 
ment may  be  hkened  to  a  group  of  figures  sculp- 
tured in  the  sand. 

Those  of  us  who  ask  much  of  the  contemporary 
theatre  maj^  be  saddened  to  observe  that  most  of 
the  current  dramatists  seem  more  akin  to  the  sand- 
man than  to  Praxiteles.  They  have  built  Courts 
of  Honor  for  forty  weeks,  rather  than  temples 
to  Poseidon  for  eternity.  Yet  it  is  futile  to  con- 
demn an  artist  who  does  a  lesser  thing  quite  well 
because  he  has  not  attempted  to  do  a  greater 
thing  which,  very  probably,  he  could  not  do  at 
all.  Criticism,  in  order  to  render  any  practical 
service,  must  be  tuned  in  accordance  with  the  in- 
tention of  the  artist.  The  important  point  for 
the  critic  of  the  sand-man  at  Coney  Island  is  not 
to  complain  because  he  is  not  so  enduring  an  artist 
as  Praxiteles,  but  to  determine  why  he  is,  or 
is  not,  as  the  case  may  be,  a  better  artist  than 
the  sand-man  at  Atlantic  City. 


THE   QUALITY   OF   NEW  ENDEAVOR 

Many  critics  seem  to  be  of  the  opinion  that 
the  work  of  a  new  and  unknown  author  deserves 
and  requires  less  serious  consideration  than  the  work 
of  an  author  of  established  reputation.  There  is, 
however,  an  important  sense  in  which  the  very  con- 
trary is  true.  The  function  of  the  critic  is  to 
help  the  public  to  discern  and  to  appreciate  what  is 
worthy.  The  fact  of  an  established  reputation 
affords  evidence  that  the  author  who  enjoys  it  has 
already  achieved  the  appreciation  of  the  public 
and  no  longer  stands  in  need  of  the  intermediary 
service  of  the  critic.  But  every  new  author  ad- 
vances as  an  applicant  for  admission  into  the  ranks 
of  the  recognised ;  and  the  critic  must,  whenever 
possible,  assist  the  public  to  determine  whether  the 
newcomer  seems  destined  by  inherent  right  to  enter 
among  the  good  and  faithful  servants,  or  whether 
he  is  essentially  an  outsider  seeking  to  creep  or 
intrude  or  climb  into  the  fold. 

Since  everybody  knows  already  who  Sir  Arthur 
Wing  Pinero  is  and  what  may  be  expected  of  him, 
the  only  question  for  the  critic,  in  considering  a 

212 


THE  QUALITY  OF  NEW  ENDEAVOR      213 

new  play  from  his  practiced  pen,  is  whether  or  not 
the  author  has  succeeded  in  advancing  or  maintain- 
ing the  standard  of  his  earher  and  remembered  ef- 
forts. If,  as  in  The  Wife  Without  a  Smile,  he  falls 
far  below  that  standard,  the  critic  may  condemn  the 
play,  and  let  the  matter  go  at  that.  Although  the 
new  piece  may  be  discredited,  the  author's  reputa- 
tion will  suffer  no  abiding  injury  from  the  deep 
damnation  of  its  taking  off;  for  the  public  will 
continue  to  remember  the  third  act  of  The  Gay 
Lord  Quex,  and  will  remain  assured  that  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero  is  worth  while.  But  when  a  play  by  a 
new  author  comes  up  for  consideration,  the  pub- 
lic needs  to  be  told  not  only  whether  the  work 
itself  has  been  well  or  badly  done,  but  also  whether 
or  not  the  unknown  author  seems  to  be  inherently 
a  person  of  importance,  from  whom  more  worthy 
works  may  be  expected  in  the  future.  The  critic 
must  not  only  make  clear  the  playwright's  present 
actual  accomplishment,  but  must  also  estimate  his 
promise.  An  author's  first  or  second  play  is  im- 
portant mainly  —  to  use  Whitman's  phrase  —  as 
"  an  encloser  of  things  to  be."  The  question  is 
not  so  much  what  the  author  has  already  done  as 
what  he  is  likely  to  do  if  he  is  given  further  hear- 
ings. It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  work  of  an  un- 
known playwright  requires  and  deserves  more 
serious  consideration  than  the  work  of  an  acknowl- 
edged  master.     Accomplishment   is   comparatively 


2U   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

easy  to  appraise,  but  to  appreciate  promise  requires 
forward-looking  and  far-seeing  eyes. 

In  the  real  sense,  It  matters  very  little  whether 
an  author's  early  plays  succeed  or  fall.  The  one 
point  that  does  matter  Is  whether,  In  either  case, 
the  merits  and  defects  are  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
indicate  that  the  man  behind  the  work  is  inherently 
a  man  worth  while.  In  either  failure  or  success,  the 
sole  significant  thing  Is  the  quality  of  the  endeavor. 
A  young  author  may  fail  for  the  shallow  reason 
that  he  is  Insincere;  but  he  may  fail  even  more 
decisively  for  the  sublime  reason  that  as  yet  his 
reach  exceeds  his  grasp.  He  may  succeed  because 
through  earnest  effort  he  has  done  almost  well 
something  eminently  worth  the  doing ;  or  he  may 
succeed  merely  because  he  has  essayed  an  unim- 
portant and  an  easy  task.  Often  more  hope  for 
an  author's  future  may  be  founded  upon  an  initial 
failure  than  upon  an  Initial  success.  It  Is  better 
for  a  young  man  to  fail  In  a  large  and  noble  effort 
than  to  succeed  In  an  effort  insignificant  and  mean. 
For  in  labor,  as  in  life,  Stevenson's  maxim  is  very 
often  pertinent :  —  to  travel  hopefully  is  fre- 
quently  a   better  thing  than   to   arrive. 

And  in  estimating  the  work  of  new  and  un- 
known authors,  it  Is  not  nearly  so  Important  for 
the  critic  to  consider  their  present  technical  ac- 
complishment as  it  is  for  him  to  consider  the 
sincerity  with  which  they  have  endeavored  to  tell 


THE  QUALITY  OF  NEW  ENDEAVOR      215 

the  truth  about  some  important  phase  of  human 
life.  Dramatic  criticism  of  an  academic  cast  is 
of  little  value  either  to  those  who  write  plays  or 
to  those  who  see  them.  The  man  who  buys  his 
ticket  to  the  theatre  knows  little  and  cares  less 
about  the  technique  of  play-making;  and  for  the 
dramatist  himself  there  are  no  ten  commandments. 
I  have  been  gradually  growing  to  believe  that 
there  is  only  one  commandment  for  the  dramatist, 
—  that  he  shall  tell  the  truth ;  and  only  one  fault 
of  which  a  play  is  capable, —  that,  as  a  whole  or 
in  details,  it  tells  a  lie.  A  play  is  irretrievably 
bad  only  when  the  average  theatre-goer  —  a  man. 
I  mean,  with  no  special  knowledge  of  dramatic 
art  —  viewing  what  is  done  upon  the  stage  and 
hearing  what  is  said,  revolts  instinctively  against  it 
with  a  feeling  that  I  may  best  express  in  that 
famous  sentence  of  Assessor  Brack's,  "  People 
don't  do  such  things."  A  play  that  is  truthful 
at  all  points  will  never  evoke  this  instinctive  dis- 
approval ;  a  play  that  tells  lies  at  certain  points 
will  lose  attention  by  jangling  those  who  know. 

The  test  of  truthfulness  is  the  final  test  of  ex- 
cellence in  drama.  In  saying  this,  of  course,  1 
do  not  mean  that  the  best  plays  are  realistic  in 
method,  naturalistic  in  setting,  or  close  to  actuality 
in  subject-matter.  The  Tempest  is  just  as  true  as 
The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  and  Peter  Pan  is 
just  as  true  as  Ghosts.     I  mean  merely  that  the 


216   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

people  whom  the  dramatist  has  conceived  must  act 
and  speak  at  all  points  consistently  with  the  laws 
of  their  imagined  existence,  and  that  these  laws 
must  be  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  actual  life. 
Whenever  people  on  the  stage  fail  of  this  con- 
sistency with  law,  a  normal  theatre-goer  will  feel 
instinctively,  "  Oh,  no,  he  did  not  do  that,"  or, 
"  Those  are  not  the  words  she  said."  It  may 
safely  be  predicated  that  a  play  is  really  bad  only 
when  the  audience  does  not  believe  it ;  for  a  dram- 
atist is  not  capable  of  a  single  fault,  either  techni- 
cal or  othei-wise,  that  may  not  be  viewed  as  one 
phase  or  another  of  untruthfulness. 


XI 

THE  EFFECT  OF  PLAYS  UPON  THE  PUBLIC 

In  the  course  of  his  glorious  Song  of  the  Open 
Road,  Walt  Whitman  said,  "  I  and  mine  do  not 
convince  by  arguments,  similes,  rhymes ;  we  con- 
vince by  our  presence  " ;  and  it  has  always  seemed 
to  me  that  this  remark  is  peculiarly  applicable  to 
dramatists  and  dramas.  The  primary  purpose  of 
a  play  is  to  give  a  gathered  multitude  a  larger 
sense  of  life  by  evoking  its  emotions  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  terror  and  pity,  laughter  and  love. 
Its  purpose  is  not  primarily  to  rouse  the  intellect 
to  thought  or  call  the  will  to  action.  In  so  far 
as  the  drama  uplifts  and  edifies  the  audience,  it 
does  so,  not  by  precept  or  by  syllogism,  but  by 
emotional  suggestion.  It  teaches  not  by  what  it 
says,  but  rather  by  what  it  deeply  and  mysteri- 
ously is.  It  convinces  not  by  its  arguments,  but 
by   its   presence. 

It  follows  that  those  who  think  about  the  drama 
in  relation  to  society  at  large,  and  consider  as  a 
matter  of  serious  importance  the  effect  of  the 
theatre  on  the  ticket-buying  public,  should  devote 
profound  consideration  to   that  subtle  quality  of 

217 


218   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

plays  which  I  may  call  their  tone.  Since  the 
drama  convinces  less  by  its  arguments  than  by  Its 
presence,  less  by  its  intellectual  substance  than  by 
its  emotional  suggestion,  we  have  a  right  to  de- 
mand that  it  shall  be  not  only  moral  but  also  sweet 
and  healthful  and  inspiriting. 

After  witnessing  the  admirable  performance  of 
Mrs.  Fiske  and  the  members  of  her  skilfully 
selected  company  in  Henrik  Ibsen's  dreary  and 
depressing  Rosmersholm,  I  went  home  and  sought 
solace  from  a  reperusal  of  an  old  play,  by  the 
buoyant  and  healthy  Thomas  Heywood,  which  is 
sweetly  named  The  Fair  Maid  of  the  West.  Ros- 
mersholm is  of  all  the  social  plays  of  Ibsen  the 
least  interesting  to  witness  on  the  stage,  because 
the  spectator  is  left  entirely  in  the  dark  concern- 
ing the  character  and  the  motives  of  Rebecca  West 
until  her  confession  at  the  close  of  the  third  act, 
and  can  therefore  understand  the  play  only  on 
a  second  seeing.  But  except  for  this  important 
structural  defect  the  drama  is  a  masterpiece  of  art ; 
and  it  is  surely  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  its  many 
merits.  On  the  other  hand,  The  Fair  Maid  of  the 
West  is  very  far  from  being  masterly  in  art.  In 
structure  it  is  loose  and  careless ;  in  characterisa- 
tion it  is  inconsistent  and  frequently  untrue;  in 
style  it  Is  uneven  and  without  distinction.  Ibsen, 
in  sheer  mastery  of  dramaturgic  means,  stands 
fourth  in  rank  among  the  world's  great  dramatists. 


THE  EFFECT  OF  PLAYS  219 

Heywood  was  merely  an  actor  with  a  gift  for  tell- 
ing stories,  who  flung  together  upward  of  two 
hundred  and  twenty  plays  during  the  course  of 
his  casual  career.  And  yet  The  Fair  Maid  of  the 
West  seemed  to  me  that  evening,  and  seems  to  me 
evermore  in  retrospect,  a  nobler  work  than  Ros- 
mersholm;  for  the  Norwegian  drama  gives  a  dole- 
ful exhibition  of  unnecessary  misery,  while  the 
Elizabethan  play  is  fresh  and  wholesome,  and 
fragrant  with  the  breath  of  joy. 

Of  two  plays  equally  true  in  content  and  in 
treatment,  equally  accomplished  in  structure,  in 
characterisation,  and  in  style,  that  one  is  finally 
the  better  which  evokes  from  the  audience  the 
healthiest  and  hopefullest  emotional  response. 
This  is  the  reason  why  (Edipus  King  is  a  better 
play  than  Ghosts.  The  two  pieces  are  not  dis- 
similar in  subject  and  are  strikingly  alike  in  art. 
Each  is  a  terrible  presentment  of  a  revolting  theme ; 
each,  like  an  avalanche,  crashes  to  foredoomed 
catastrophe.  But  the  Greek  tragedy  is  nobler  in 
tone,  because  it  leaves  us  a  lofty  reverence  for 
the  gods,  whereas  its  modern  counterpart  disgusts 
us  with  the  inexorable  laws  of  life, —  which  are 
only  the  old  gods  divested  of  imagined  personality. 

Slowly  but  surely  we  are  growing  very  tired  of 
dramatists  who  look  upon  life  with  a  wry  face 
instead  of  witli  a  brave  and  bracing  countenance. 
In  due  time,  when   (with  the  help  of  Mr.  Barrie 


220   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

and  other  healthy -hearted  playmates)  we  have  be- 
come again  like  little  children,  we  shall  realise  that 
plays  like  As  You  Like  It  are  better  than  all  the 
Magdas  and  the  Hedda  Gahlers  of  the  contempo- 
rary stage.  We  shall  realise  that  the  way  to  heal 
old  sores  is  to  let  them  alone,  rather  than  to  rip 
them  open,  in  the  interest  (as  we  vainly  fancy)  of 
medical  science.  We  shall  remember  that  the  way 
to  help  the  public  is  to  set  before  it  Images  of 
faith  and  hope  and  love,  rather  than  images  of 
doubt,  despair,  and  infidelity. 

The  queer  thing  about  the  morbid-minded  spe- 
cialists in  fabricated  woe  is  that  they  believe  them- 
selves to  be  telling  the  whole  truth  of  human  life 
instead  of  telling  only  the  worser  half  of  it.  They 
expunge  from  their  records  of  humanity  the  very 
emotions  that  make  life  worth  the  living,  and  then 
announce  momentously,  "  Behold  reality  at  last ; 
for  this  is  Life."  It  is  as  if,  in  the  midnoon  of 
a  god-given  day  of  golden  spring,  they  should 
hug  a  black  umbrella  down  about  their  heads  and 
cry  aloud,  "  Behold,  there  is  no  sun !  "  Shake- 
speare did  that  only  once, —  in  Measure  for 
Measure.  In  the  deepest  of  his  tragedies,  he 
voiced  a  grandeur  even  in  obliquity,  and  hymned 
the  greatness  and  the  glory  of  the  life  of  man. 

Suppose  that  what  looks  white  in  a  landscape 
painting  be  actually  bluish  gray.  Perhaps  it  would 
be  best  to  tell  us  so ;  but  failing  that,  it  would 


THE  EFFECT  OF  PLAYS  221 

certainly  be  better  to  tell  us  that  it  is  white  than 
to  tell  us  that  it  is  black.  If  jmr  dramatists  must 
idealise  at  all  in  representing  life,  let  them  idealise 
upon  the  positive  rather  than  upon  the  negative 
side.  It  is  nobler  to  tell  us  that  life  is  better  than 
it  actually  is  than  to  tell  us  that  it  is  worse.  It 
is  nobler  to  remind  us  of  the  joy  of  living  than  to 
remind  us  of  the  weariness.  "  For  to  miss  the  joy 
is  to  miss  all,"  as  Stevenson  remarked;  and  if  the 
drama  is  to  be  of  benefit  to  the  public,  it  should, 
by  its  very  presence,  convey  conviction  of  the  truth 
thus  nobl}'    phrased  by  Matthew  Arnold: 

Yet  the  will  is  free: 
Strong  is  the  Soul,  and  wise,  and  beautiful: 
The  seeds  of  godlike  power  are  in  us  still: 
Gods  are  we.  Bards,  Saints,  Heroes,  if  we  will. — 
Dumb  judges,  answer,  truth  or  mockery? 


XII 
PLEASANT  AND  UNPLEASANT  PLAYS 

The  clever  title,  Plays  Pleasant  and  Unpleasant, 
which  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  selected  for  the  earliest 
issue  of  his  dramatic  writings,  suggests  a  theme 
of  criticism  that  Mr.  Shaw,  in  his  lengthy  pref- 
aces, might  profitably  have  considered  if  he  had 
not  preferred  to  devote  his  entire  space  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  his  own  abilities.  In  explanation  of  his 
title,  the  author  stated  only  that  he  labeled  his 
first  three  plays  Unpleasant  for  the  reason  that 
"  their  dramatic  power  is  used  to  force  the  spec- 
tator to  face  unpleasant  facts."  This  sentence, 
of  course,  is  not  a  definition,  since  it  merely  re- 
peats the  word  to  be  explained;  and  therefore,  if 
we  wish  to  find  out  whether  or  not  an  unpleasant 
play  is  of  any  real  service  in  the  theatre,  we  shall 
have  to  do  some  thinking  of  our  own. 

It  is  an  axiom  that  all  things  in  the  universe 
are  interesting.  The  word  interesting  means  ca- 
pable  of  awaJcening  some  activity  of  human  mind; 
and  there  is  no  imaginable  topic,  whether  pleasant 
or  unpleasant,  which  is  not,  in  one  way,  or  another, 
capable  of  this  effect.     But  the  activities  of  the 

222 


PLEASANT  AND  UNPLEASANT  PLAYS     223 

human  mind  are  various,  and  there  are  therefore 
several  different  sorts  of  interest.  The  activity  of 
mind  awakened  by  music  over  waters  is  very  dif- 
ferent from  that  awakened  by  the  binomial  theorem. 
Some  things  interest  the  intellect,  others  the  emo- 
tions ;  and  it  is  only  things  of  prime  importance 
that  interest  them  both  in  equal  measure.  Now  if 
\^e  compare  the  interest  of  pleasant  and  unpleasant 
topics,  we  shall  see  at  once  that  the  activity  of 
mind  awakened  by  the  former  is  more  complete 
than  that  awakened  by  the  latter.  A  pleasant 
topic  not  only  interests  the  intellect  but  also  elicits 
a  positive  response  from  the  emotions ;  but  most 
unpleasant  topics  are  positively  interesting  to  the 
intellect  alone.  In  so  far  as  the  emotions  respond 
at  all  to  an  unpleasant  topic,  they  respond  usually 
with  a  negative  activity.  Regarding  a  thing 
which  is  unpleasant,  the  healthy  mind  will  feel 
aversion  —  which  is  a  negative  emotion  —  or  else 
will  merely  think  about  it  with  no  feeling  whatso- 
ever. But  regarding  a  thing  which  is  pleasant, 
the  mind  may  be  stirred  through  the  entire  gamut 
of  positive  emotions,  rising  ultimately  to  that  su- 
preme activity  which  is  Love.  This  is,  of  course, 
the  philosophic  reason  why  the  thinkers  of  pleasant 
thoughts  and  dreamers  of  beautiful  dreams  stand 
higher  in  history  than  those  who  have  thought  un- 
pleasantness and  have  imagined  woe. 

Returning  now  to  that  clever  title  of  Mr.  Shaw's, 


224   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

we  may  define  an  unpleasant  play  as  one  which 
interests  the  intellect  without  at  the  same  time 
awakening  a  positive  response  from  the  emotions ; 
and  we  may  define  a  pleasant  play  as  one  which 
not  only  stimulates  thought  but  also  elicits  sym- 
pathy. To  any  one  who  has  thoroughly  consid- 
ered the  conditions  governing  theatric  art,  it  should 
be  evident  a  priori  that  pleasant  plays  are  better 
suited  for  service  in  the  theatre  than  unpleasant 
plays.  This  truth  is  clearly  illustrated  by  the 
facts  of  Mr.  Shaw's  career.  As  a  matter  of  his- 
tory, it  will  be  remembered  that  his  vogue  in  our 
theatres  has  been  confined  almost  entirely  to  his 
pleasant  plays.  All  four  of  them  have  enjoyed  a 
profitable  run ;  and  it  is  to  Candida,  the  best  of 
his  pleasant  plays,  that,  in  America  at  least,  he 
owes  his  fame.  Of  the  three  unpleasant  plays,  The 
Philanderer  has  never  been  produced  at  all;  Wid- 
ower's  Houses  has  been  given  only  in  a  series  of 
special  matinees;  and  Mrs.  Warren's  Profession, 
though  it  was  enormously  advertised  by  the  fatuous 
interference  of  the  police,  failed  to  interest  the 
public  when  ultimately  it  was  offered  for  a  run. 

Mrs.  Warren's  Profession  is  just  as  interesting 
to  the  thoughtful  reader  as  Candida.  It  is  built 
with  the  same  technical  efficiency,  and  written  with 
the  same  agility  and  wit;  it  is  just  as  sound  and 
true,  and  therefore  just  as  moral;  and  as  a  criti- 
cism, not  so  much  of  life  as  of  society,  it  is  in- 


PLEASANT  AND  UNPLEASANT  PLAYS      225 

dubitably  more  important.  Why,  then,  is  Candida 
a  better  work?  The  reason  is  that  the  unpleasant 
play  is  interesting  merely  to  the  intellect  and  leaves 
the  audience  cold,  whereas  the  pleasant  play  is 
interesting  also  to  the  emotions  and  stirs  the  audi- 
ence to  sympathy.  It  is  possible  for  the  public  to 
feel  sorry  for  Morell;  it  is  even  possible  for  them 
to  feel  sorry  for  Marchbanks :  but  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  for  them  to  feel  sorry  for  Mrs.  Warren. 
The  multitude  instinctively  demands  an  oppor- 
tunity to  sympathise  with  the  characters  presented 
in  the  theatre.  Since  the  drama  is  a  democratic 
art,  and  the  dramatist  is  not  the  monarch  but  the 
servant  of  the  public,  the  voice  of  the  people 
should,  in  this  mailer  of  pleasant  and  unpleasant 
plays,  be  considered  the  voice  of  the  gods.  This 
thesis  seems  to  me  axiomatic  and  unsusceptible  of 
argument.  Yet  since  it  is  continuall}'  denied  by 
the  professed  "  uplifters  "  of  the  stage,  who  per- 
sist in  looking  down  upon  the  public  and  decrying 
the  wisdom  of  the  many,  it  may  be  necessary  to  ex- 
plain the  eternal  principle  upon  which  it  is  based. 
The  truth  must  be  self-evident  that  theatre-goers 
are  endowed  with  a  certain  inalienable  right  — 
namely,  the  pursuit  of  hapj)iness.  The  pursuit  of 
happiness  is  the  most  important  thing  in  the  world ; 
because  it  is  nothing  less  than  an  endeavor  to  un- 
derstand and  to  appreciate  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  good.      Happiness  comes  of  loving  things 


226   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

which  are  worthy ;  a  man  is  happy  in  proportion  to 
the  number  of  things  which  he  has  learned  to  love; 
and  he,  of  all  men,  is  most  happy  who  loveth  best 
all  things  both  great  and  small.     For  happiness 
is  the  feeling  of  harmony  between  a  man  and  his 
surroundings,  the  sense  of  being  at  home  in  the 
universe  and  brotherly  toward   all  worthy  things 
that    are.     The    pursuit    of    happiness    is    simply 
a  continual  endeavor  to  discover  new  things  that 
are  worthy,  to  the  end  that  they  may  waken  love 
within  us  and  thereby  lure  us  loftier  toward  an 
ultimate  absolute  awareness  of  truth  and  beauty. 
It  is  in  this  simple,  sane  pursuit  that  people  go 
to   the  theatre.     The   important   thing   about  the 
public  is  that  it  has  a  large  and  longing  heart. 
That  heart  demands  that  sympathy  be   awakened 
in  it,  and  will  not  be  satisfied  with  merely  intel- 
lectual discussion  of  unsympathetic  things.     It  is 
therefore  the  duty,  as  well  as  the  privilege,  of  the 
dramatist  to  set  before  the  public  incidents  which 
may  awaken  sympathy  and  characters  which  may 
be  loved.     He  is  the  most  important  artist  in  the 
theatre  who  gives  the  public  most  to  care  about. 
This    is   the   reason   why    Joseph   Jefferson's    Rip 
Van  Winkle  must  be  rated  as  the  greatest  creation 
of   the   American    stage.     The    play    was    shabby 
as  a  work  of  art,  and  there  was  nothing  even  in 
the  character  to  think  about;  but  every  perform- 


PLEASANT  AND  UNPLEASANT  PLAYS      227 

ance  of  the  part  left  thousands  happier,  because 
their  lives  had  been  enriched  with  a  new  memory 
that  made  their  hearts  grow  warm  with  sympathy 
and  large  with  love. 


XIII 
THEMES  IN  THE  THEATRE 

As  the  final  curtain  falls  upon  the  majority  of 
the  plays  that  somehow  get  themselves  presented 
in  the  theatres  of  New  York,  the  critical  observer 
feels  tempted  to  ask  the  playwright  that  simple 
question  of  young  Peterkin  in  Robert  Southey's 
ballad,  After  Blenheim, — "  Now  tell  us  what  't 
was  all  about  " ;  and  he  suffers  an  uncomfortable 
feeling  that  the  playwright  will  be  obliged  to  an- 
swer in  the  words  of  old  Kaspar,  "  Why,  that  I 
cannot  tell."  The  critic  has  viewed  a  semblance 
of  a  dramatic  struggle  between  puppets  on  the 
stage ;  but  what  they  fought  each  other  for  he  can- 
not well  make  out.  And  it  is  evident,  in  the  ma- 
jority of  cases,  that  the  playwright  could  not  tell 
him  if  he  would,  for  the  reason  that  the  play- 
wright does  not  know.  Not  even  the  author  can 
know  what  a  play  is  all  about  when  the  play  isn't 
about  anything.  And  this,  it  must  be  admitted, 
is  precisely  what  is  wrong  with  the  majority  of  the 
plays  that  are  shown  in  our  theatres,  especially 
with  plays  written   by   American   authors.     They 

228 


THEMES  IN  THE  THEATRE  229 

are  not  about   anything;   or,  to   say  the  matter 
more  technically,  they  haven't  any  theme. 

By  a  theme  is  meant  some  eternal  principle,  or 
truth,  of  human  life  —  such  a  truth  as  might  be 
stated  by  a  man  of  philosophic  mind  in  an  abstract 
and  general  proposition  —  which  the  dramatist 
contrives  to  convey  to  his  auditors  concretely  by 
embodying  it  in  the  particular  details  of  his  play. 
These  details  must  be  so  selected  as  to  represent 
at  every  point  some  phase  of  the  central  and  in- 
forming truth,  and  no  incidents  or  characters  must 
be  shown  which  are  not  directly  or  indirectly  rep- 
resentative of  the  one  thing  which,  in  that  par- 
ticular piece,  the  author  has  to  say.  The  great 
plays  of  the  world  have  all  grown  endogenously 
from  a  single,  central  idea ;  or,  to  vary  the  figure, 
they  have  been  spun  like  spider-webs,  filament  after 
filament,  out  of  a  central  living  source.  But  most 
of  our  native  playwrights  seem  seldom  to  experi- 
ence this  necessary  process  of  the  imagination 
which  creates.  Instead  of  working  from  the  in- 
side out,  they  work  from  the  outside  in.  They 
gather  up  a  haphazard  handful  of  theatric  situa- 
tions and  try  to  string  them  together  into  a  story ; 
they  congregate  an  ill-assorted  company  of  char- 
acters and  try  to  achieve  a  play  by  letting  them 
talk  to  each  other.  Many  of  our  playwrights  are 
endowed  with  a  sense  of  situation ;  several  of  them 
have  a  gift   for  characterisation,   or  at  least  for 


230   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

caricature;  and  most  of  them  can  write  easy  and 
natural  dialogue,  especially  in  slang.  But  very 
few  of  them  start  out  with  something  to  say,  as 
Mr.  Moody  started  out  in  The  Great  Divide  and 
Mr.  Thomas  in  The  Witching  Hour. 

When  a  play  is  really  about  something,  it  is 
always  possible  for  the  critic  to  state  the  theme 
of  it  in  a  single  sentence.  Thus,  the  theme  of 
The  Witching  Hour  is  that  every  thought  is  in  it- 
self an  act,  and  that  therefore  thinking  has  the 
virtue,  and  to  some  extent  the  power,  of  action. 
Every  character  in  the  piece  was  invented  to  em- 
body some  phase  of  this  central  proposition,  and 
every  incident  was  devised  to  represent  this  ab- 
stract truth  concretely.  Similarly,  it  would  be 
easy  to  state  in  a  single  sentence  the  theme  of 
Le  Tartufe,  or  of  Othello,  or  of  Ghosts.  But 
who,  after  seeing  four  out  of  five  of  the  American 
plays  that  are  produced  upon  Broadway,  could 
possibly  tell  in  a  single  sentence  what  they  were 
about.?  What,  for  instance  —  to  mention  only 
plays  which  did  not  fail  —  was  Via  Wireless 
about,  or  The  Fighting  Hope,  or  even  The  Man 
from  Home?  Each  of  these  was  in  some  ways  an 
interesting  entertainment;  but  each  was  valueless 
as  drama,  because  none  of  them  conveyed  to  its 
auditors  a  theme  which  they  might  remember  and 
weave  into  the  texture  of  their  lives. 


THEMES  IN  THE  THEATRE  231 

For  the  only  sort  of  play  that  permits  itself  to 
be  remembered  is  a  play  that  presents  a  distinct 
theme  to  the  mind  of  the  observer.  It  is  ten  years 
since  I  have  seen  Le  Tartufe  and  six  years  since 
last  I  read  it ;  and  yet,  since  the  theme  is  unf orget- 
able,  I  could  at  any  moment  easily  reconstruct 
the  piece  by  retrospective  imagination  and  sum- 
marise the  action  clearly'  in  a  paragraph.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  I  should  at  any  time  find  it  im- 
possible to  recall  with  sufficient  clearness  to  sum- 
marise them,  any  of  a  dozen  American  plays  of 
the  usual  type  which  I  had  seen  within  the  preced- 
ing six  months.  Details  of  incident  or  of  charac- 
ter or  of  dialogue  slip  the  mind  and  melt  away  like 
smoke  into  the  air.  To  have  seen  a  play  without 
a  theme  is  the  same,  a  month  or  two  later,  as  not 
to  have  seen  a  play  at  all.  But  a  piece  like  The 
Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  once  seen,  can  never  be 
forgotten ;  because  the  mind  clings  to  the  central 
proposition  which  the  play  was  built  in  order  to 
reveal,  and  from  this  ineradicable  recollection  may 
at  any  moment  proceed  by  psychologic  association 
to  recall  the  salient  concrete  features  of  the  ac- 
tion. To  develop  a  play  from  a  central  theme 
is  therefore  the  sole  means  by  which  a  dramatist 
may  insure  his  work  against  the  iniquity  of  ob- 
livion. In  order  that  people  may  afterward  re- 
member what  he  has  said,  it  is  necessary  for  him 


232   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

to  show  them  clearly  and  emphatically  at  the  out- 
set why  he  has  undertaken  to  talk  and  precisely 
what  he  means  to  talk  about. 

Most  of  our  American  playwrights,  like  Juliet 
in  the  balcony  scene,  speak,  yet  they  say  nothing. 
They  represent  facts,  but  fail  to  reveal  truths. 
What  they  lack  Is  purpose.  They  collect,  instead 
of  meditating;  they  invent,  Instead  of  wondering; 
they  are  clever,  instead  of  being  real.  They  are 
avid  of  details:  they  regard  the  part  as  greater 
than  the  whole.  They  deal  with  outsldes  and  sur- 
faces, not  with  centralities  and  profundities.  They 
value  acts  more  than  they  value  the  meanings  of 
acts;  they  forget  that  It  Is  In  the  motive  rather 
than  In  the  deed  that  Life  Is  to  be  looked  for. 
For  Life  Is  a  matter  of  thinking  and  of  feeling; 
all  act  Is  merely  Living,  and  Is  significant  only 
in  so  far  as  It  reveals  the  Life  that  prompted  It. 
Give  us  less  of  Living,  more  of  Life,  must  ever 
be  the  cry  of  earnest  criticism.  Enough  of  these 
mutitudlnous,  multifarious  facts:  tell  us  single, 
simple  truths.  Give  us  more  themes,  and  fewer 
fabrics  of  shreds  and  patches. 


XIV 
THE  FUNCTION  OF  IMAGINATION 

Whenever  the  spring  comes  round  and  every- 
thing beneath  the  sun  looks  wonderful  and  new, 
the  habitual  theatre-goer,  who  has  attended  every 
legitimate  performance  throughout  the  winter  sea- 
son in  New  York,  is  moved  to  lament  that  there 
is  nothing  new  behind  the  footlights.  Week  after 
week  he  has  seen  the  same  old  puppets  pulled  me- 
chanically through  the  same  old  situations,  doing 
conventional  deeds  and  repeating  conventional 
lines,  until  at  last,  as  he  watches  the  performance 
of  yet  another  p.lay,  he  feels  like  saying  to  the 
author,  "  But,  my  dear  sir,  I  have  seen  and  heard 
all  this  so  many,  many  times  already !  "  For  this 
spring-weariness  of  the  frequenter  of  the  theatre, 
the  common  run  of  our  contemporary  playwrights 
must  be  held  responsible.  The  main  trouble  seems 
to  be  that,  instead  of  telling  us  what  they  think  life 
is  hke,  they  tell  us  what  they  think  a  play  is  like. 
Their  fault  is  not  —  to  use  Hamlet's  phrase  — 
that  they  "imitate  humanity  so  abominably":  it 
is,  rather,  that  they  do  not  imitate  humanity   at 

233 


234   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

all.  Most  of  our  playwrights,  especially  the  new- 
comers to  the  craft,  imitate  each  other.  They 
make  plays  for  the  sake  of  making  plays,  instead 
of  for  the  sake  of  representing  life.  They  draw 
their  inspiration  from  the  little  mimic  world  be- 
hind the  footlights,  rather  than  from  the  roaring 
and  tremendous  world  which  takes  no  thought  of 
the  theatre.  Their  art  fails  to  interpret  life,  be- 
cause they  care  less  about  life  than  they  care  about 
their  art.  They  are  interested  in  what  they  are 
doing,  instead  of  being  interested  in  why  they  are 
doing  it.  "  Go  to !  ",  they  say  to  themselves,  "  I 
will  write  a  play " ;  and  the  weary  auditor  is 
tempted  to  murmur  the  sentence  of  the  cynic 
Frenchman,  "  Je  fCen  vols  pas  la  necessite." 

But  now,  lest  we  be  led  into  misapprehension, 
let  us  understand  clearly  that  what  we  desire  in  the 
theatre  is  not  new  material,  but  rather  a  fresh  and 
vital  treatment  of  such  material  as  the  playwright 
finds  made  to  his  hand.  After  a  certain  philo- 
sophic critic  had  announced  the  startling  thesis 
that  only  some  thirty  odd  distinct  dramatic  situa- 
tions were  conceivable,  Goethe  and  Schiller  set 
themselves  the  task  of  tabulation,  and  ended  by 
deciding  that  the  largest  conceivable  number  was 
less  than  twenty.  It  is  a  curious  paradox  of  crit- 
icism that  for  new  plays  old  material  is  best. 
This  statement  is  supported  historically  by  the 
fact  that  all  the  great  Greek  dramatists,  nearly  all 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  IMAGINATION       235 

of  the  Elizabethans,  Corneille,  Racine,  Moliere, 
and,  to  a  great  extent,  the  leaders  of  the  drama 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  made  their  plays  delib- 
erately out  of  narrative  materials  already  familiar 
to  the  theatre-going  public  of  their  times.  The 
drama,  by  its  very  nature,  is  an  art  traditional  in 
form  and  resumptive  in  its  subject-matter.  It 
would  be  futile,  therefore,  for  us  to  ask  con- 
temporary playwrights  to  invent  new  narrative 
materials.  Their  fault  is  not  that  they  deal  with 
what  is  old,  but  that  they  fail  to  make  out  of  it 
anything  which  is  new.  If,  in  the  long  run,  they 
weary  us,  the  reason  is  not  that  they  are  lacking 
in  invention,  but  that  they  are  lacking  in  imagina- 
tion. 

That  invention  and  imagination  are  two  very 
different  faculties,  that  the  second  is  much  higher 
than  the  first,  that  invention  has  seldom  been  dis- 
played by  the  very  greatest  authors,  whereas  im- 
agination has  always  been  an  indispensable  char- 
acteristic of  their  work, —  these  points  have  all 
been  made  clear  in  a  very  suggestive  essay  by  Pro- 
fessor Brander  Matthews,  which  is  included  in  his 
volume  entitled  Inquiries  and  Opinions.  It  re- 
mains for  us  to  consider  somewhat  closely  what 
the  nature  of  imagination  is.  Imagination  is 
nothing  more  or  less  than  the  faculty  for  realisO'- 
tion, —  the  faculty  by  which  the  mind  makes  real 
unto  itself  such  materials  as  arc  presented  to   it. 


236   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

The  full  significance  of  this  definition  may  be  made 
clear  by  a  simple  illustration. 

Suppose  that  some  morning  at  breakfast  you 
pick  up  a  newspaper  and  read  that  a  great  earth- 
quake has  overwhelmed  Messina,  killing  countless 
thousands  and  rendering  an  entire  province  deso- 
late. You  say,  "  How  very  terrible !  " —  after 
which  you  go  blithely  about  your  business,  un- 
troubled, undisturbed.  But  suppose  that  your 
little  girl's  pet  pussy-cat  happens  to  fall  out  of 
the  fourth-story  window.  If  you  chance  to  be  an 
author  and  have  an  article  to  write  that  morning, 
you  will  find  the  task  of  composition  heavy. 
Now,  the  reason  why  the  death  of  a  single  pussy- 
cat affects  you  more  than  the  death  of  a  hundred 
thousand  human  beings  is  merely  that  you  realise 
the  one  and  do  not  realise  the  other.  You  do  not, 
by  the  action  of  imagination,  make  real  unto  your- 
self the  disaster  at  Messina ;  but  when  you  see  your 
little  daughter's  face,  you  at  once  and  easily  im- 
agine woe.  Similarly,  on  the  largest  scale,  we  go 
through  life  realising  only  a  very  little  part  of 
all  that  is  presented  to  our  minds.  Yet,  finally, 
we  know  of  life  only  so  much  as  we  have  realised. 
To  use  the  other  word  for  the  same  idea, —  we 
know  of  life  only  so  much  as  we  have  imagined. 
Now,  whatever  of  life  we  make  real  unto  ourselves 
by  the  action  of  imagination  is  for  us  fresh  and 
instant  and,  in  a  deep  sense,  new, —  even  though 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  IMAGINATION       237 

the  same  materials  have  been  reahsed  by  miUions 
of  human  beings  before  us.  It  is  new  because  we 
have  made  it,  and  we  are  different  from  all  our 
predecessors.  Landor  imagined  Italy,  realised  it, 
made  it  instant  and  afresh.  In  the  subjective 
sense,  he  created  Italy,  an  Italy  that  had  never 
existed  before, —  Lander's  Italy.  Later  Brown- 
ing came,  with  a  new  imagination,  a  new  realisa- 
tion, a  new  creation, —  Browning's  Italy.  The 
materials  had  existed  through  immemorable  cen- 
turies ;  Landor,  by  imagination,  made  of  them 
something  real ;  Browning  imagined  them  again 
and  made  of  them  something  new.  But  a  Cook's 
tourist  hurrying  through  Italy  is  likely,  through 
deficiency  of  imagmation,  not  to  realise  an  Italy 
at  all.  He  reviews  the  same  materials  that  were 
presented  to  Landor  and  to  Browning, but  he  makes 
nothing  out  of  them.  Italy  for  him  is  tedious, 
like  a  twice-told  tale.  The  trouble  is  not  that  the 
materials  are  old,  but  that  he  lacks  the  faculty  for 
realising  them  and  thereby  making  of  them  some- 
thing new. 

A  great  many  of  our  contemporary  playwrights 
travel  like  Cook's  tourists  through  the  traditional 
subject-matter  of  the  theatre.  They  stop  off  here 
and  there,  at  this  or  that  eternal  situation;  but 
they  do  not,  by  imagination,  make  it  real. 
Thereby  they  miss  the  proper  function  of  the 
dramatist,  which  is  to  imagine  some  aspect  of  the 


238   THE  THEORY  OF  THE  THEATRE 

perennial  struggle  between  human  wills  so  forci- 
bly as  to  make  us  realise  it,  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word, —  realise  it  as  we  daily  fail  to  realise  the 
countless  struggles  we  ourselves  engage  in.  The 
theatre,  rightly  considered,  is  not  a  place  in  which 
to  escape  from  the  realities  of  life,  but  a  place  in 
which  to  seek  refuge  from  the  unrealities  of  ac- 
tual living  in  the  contemplation  of  life  realised, — 
life  made  real  by  imagination. 

The  trouble  with  most  ineifective  plays  is  that 
the  fabricated  life  they  set  before  us  is  less  real 
than  such  similar  phases  of  actual  life  as  we  have 
previously  realised  for  ourselves.  We  are  wearied 
because  we  have  already  unconsciously  imagined 
more  than  the  playwright  professionally  imagines 
for  us.  With  a  great  play  our  experience  is  the 
reverse  of  this.  Incidents,  characters,  motives 
which  we  ourselves  have  never  made  completely 
real  by  imagination  are  realised  for  us  by  the 
dramatist.  Intimations  of  humanity  which  in  our 
own  minds  have  lain  jumbled  fragmentary,  like 
the  multitudinous  pieces  of  a  shuffled  picture-puz- 
zle, are  there  set  orderly  before  us,  so  that  we  see 
at  last  the  perfect  picture.  We  escape  out  of 
chaos  into  life. 

This  is  the  secret  of  originality :  this  it  is  that 
we  desire  in  the  theatre :  —  not  new  material,  for 
the  old  is  still  the  best;  but  familiar  material  ren- 
dered new  by  an  imagination  that  informs  it  with 
significance  and  makes  it  real. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adams,  Maude,  60. 

Addison,  Joseph,  79;  Cato, 
79. 

Ade,  George,  56;  Fables  in 
Slang,  56;  The  College 
Widow,  41. 

Admirable  Crichton,  The, 
113. 

jEschylus,  5,  6,  135. 

After  Blenheim,  228, 

Aiglon,  U,  67,  68. 

Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire,  157. 

Allen,  Viola,  109. 

Alleyn,  Edward,  163. 

All  for  Love,  17. 

Alma-Tadema,  Sir  Law- 
rence, 92. 

Antony,  140,  142. 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  16. 

Aristophanes,  202. 

Aristotle,   18. 

Arnold,  .Matthew,  8,  19,  205, 
221. 

As  You  Like  It,  38,  48,  51, 
61,  62,  77,  78,  92,  100,  172, 
186,  220. 

Atalanta  in  Cahjdon,  20. 

Augier,  Kniilf-,  9,  141. 

Autobioyrrtphy  of  Joseph 
Jefferson,  103. 

Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast- 
Table,  The,  178. 

Bannister,  John,  86. 
Banville,  Th(!odore  dc,  66. 
Barrie,  James  Matthew,  204, 
205,    206,    219;    Alice-Sit- 

2 


by-the-Fire,  157;  Peter 
Pan,  215;  The  Admirable 
Crichton,  113;  The  Pro- 
fessor's Love  Story,  157. 

Barry,  Elizabeth,  70,  80. 

Barrymore,  Ethel,  157. 

Bartholomew  Fair,  202. 

Beau  Brummel,  70,  114,  210. 

Beaumont,  Francis,  28;  Th« 
Maid's  Tragedy,  28. 

Becket,  19,  72. 

Bejart,  Armande,  62,  63,  71. 

B^jart,  Magdeleine,  62,  71. 

Belasco,  David,  155;  The 
Darling  of  the  Gods,  42; 
The  Girl  of  the  Golden 
West,  90. 

Bells,  The,  125. 

Bensley,  Robert,  86. 

Bernhardt,  Sarah,  40,  64,  65, 
66,  68,   105,  107. 

Betterton,  Thomas,  70. 

Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  A, 
31,  56. 

Boucicault,  Dion,  70,  83; 
London  Assurance,  83; 
Rip    Van    Winkle,  70. 

Brown  of  Harvard,  155. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  177; 
Reliyio  Mtdici,  31. 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett, 
19,  205. 

Browning,  Robert,  10,  19, 
31,  32,  237;  A  Blot  in  the 
'Scutcheon,  31,  56;  A  Wo- 
man's Last    Word,  32;  In 


41 


242 


INDEX 


a     Balcony,      10;      Pippa 

Passes,  31,  194. 
Brunetiere,  Ferdinand,  35. 
Bulwer-Lytton,  Sir  Edward, 

79;  Richelieu,  79. 
Burbage,  James,  77. 
Burbage,  Richard,  60,  61,  79, 

93. 
Burke,  Charles,   103. 
Burton,  William  E.,  103. 
Byron,       George       Gordon, 

Lord,   19. 

Calderon,  Don   Pedro  C.  de 

la  Barca,  26,  50. 
Campbell,  Mrs.  Patrick,  66, 

69. 
Candida,  224,,  225. 
Cato,  79. 
Cenci,  The,  144. 
Charles  I,  72. 
Chinese  theatre,  78. 
Chorus  Lady,  The,  22. 
Christ  in  Hades,   197. 
Gibber,  Colley,  63,  85,  164. 
Cittd  Morta,  La,  12. 
Coleridge,     Samuel     Taylor, 

19. 
College  Widow,  The,  41. 
Collins,  Wilkie,   121. 
Colvin,  Sidney,  170. 
Comedy  of  Errors,  The,  38. 
Commedia  delVarte,  10,  11. 
Congreve,  William,  9,  164. 
Conquest   of   Granada,   The, 

74. 
Coquelin,    Constant,    60,    66, 

67,  68,  71,  105. 
Corneille,  Pierre,  50,  235, 
Cromwell,  64. 
Crossing     Brooklyn     Ferry, 

182. 
Cymbeline,  17,  63. 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  31,  56, 

60,    67,    71,    98,    100,    105, 

121,  195. 


Dame  aux  CamMias,  La,  14, 
37,  53,  105,  141,  146, 

Dante  Alighieri,  162,  188; 
Inferno,   188. 

Darling  of  the  Gods,  The,  42, 

Darwin,  Charles,  21, 

Davenant,  Sir  William,  80, 

Dekker,  Thomas,  202. 

Demi-Monde,  Le,  141. 

Dennery,  Adolphe,  6,  175; 
The  Two  Orphans,  6,  31, 
32,  37,  175. 

Diplomacy,  101. 

Doll's  House,  A,  47,  53,  146, 
158, 

Don  Quixote,  59. 

Doyle,  Sir  Arthur  Conan,  22; 
Sherlock  Holmes,  22,  157; 
The  Story  of  Waterloo, 
157, 

Dr.  Faustus,  136,  137. 

Dryden,  John,  16,  17,  73;  All 
for  Love,  17;  The  Con- 
quest of  Granada,  74. 

Duchess  of  Malfi,  The,  130. 

Du  Croisy,  62,  63. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  fils,  14; 
La  Dam,e  aux  Camelias, 
14,  37,  53,  105,  141,  146; 
Le  Demi-Monde,  141 ;  Le 
Fils  Naturel,  142. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  pere, 
140;  Antony,  140,   142. 

Duse,  Eleanora,  65,  71. 

Echegaray,    Don    Jos^,    187, 

188,  189;  El  Gran  Galeoto, 

187-192. 
Egoist,  The,  31. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  202, 
Enemy    of   the  People,   An, 

137,  201. 
Etherege,   Sir  George,  82. 
Euripides,  131. 
Every  Man  in  His  Humour, 

100, 


INDEX 


243 


Fables  in  Slang,  56. 

Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  218, 
219. 

Faiixt,  31. 

Fed II, -a,  65. 

Fi (fitting  Hope,   The,  230. 

Fi'ls  Saturel,  Le,  142. 

Fiske,  John,  MS. 

Fiske,  Mrs.  Minnie  Maddern, 
7,  87,  102,  115,  218. 

Fitch,  Clyde,  13.  70,  89,  90, 
159;  Beau  Brummel,  70, 
114,  210;  The  Girl  with  the 
Green  Eyes,  159. 

Fletcher,  John,  28,  48,  61; 
The  Maid's  Tragedy,  28. 

Forbes,  James,  22;  The 
Chorvs  Lady,  22. 

Forbes-Robertson,   John- 
stone, 7,  92,  125. 

Fourberies  de  Scapin,  Les, 
51. 

Frou-Frou,  43,  141. 

Gay    Lord   Quex,    The,    120, 

134,  213. 
Ghosts,  53,  142,  144,  145,  215, 

219,  230. 
Gillette,    William,    22,    121; 

Sherlock  Holmes,  22,  121. 
Girl    of    the    Golden    West, 

The,  90. 
Oirl    with    the    Green   Eyes, 

The,  159. 
Gismonda,  65. 
Goethe,     Johann     Wolfgang 

von,  234;  Faust,  31. 
Gorhoduc,  73. 

GoKsip  on  Romance,  A,  128. 
Gran  Galeoto,  El,  187-192. 
Great  Divide,  The,  230. 
Greene.   I{i)l)crl,  4K.  (il. 
Greet,  Ben,  75,  109,  110. 

Hamlet,  8,  12,  38,  39,  48,  51, 
55,  60,  61,  67,  68,  71,  79,  hi), 


92,  100,  101,  105,  106,  107, 

115,  118,  121,  122,  130,  136, 
175,  177,  181,  184,  185,  187, 
194,  203,  233. 

Haworth.  Joseph,  104. 
Hedda    Gablcr,    37,    5.3,    87, 

102,  115,  117,  120,  145,  158, 

181,  215,  220. 
Henry   V,  41,  77. 
Henslowe,  Philip,  164. 
Hernani,  14,  140. 
Heme,  James  A.,  87;  Shore 

Acres,  87,  193. 
Hero  and  Leander,  171. 
Heyse,  Paul,  7,  116;  Mary  of 

ilagdala,  7,   116. 
Heywood,    Thomas,    38,    39, 

202,   218,   219;   A    Woman 

Killed  tcith  Kindness,  38; 

The     Fair    Maid     of     the 

West,  218,  219. 
"  Hope,  Laurence,"  206. 
Hour  Glass,  The,  56. 
Howard,  Bronson,  108,  157; 

Shenandoah,  101,  108,  157. 
Howells,  William  Dean.  153. 
Hufro,  Victor,  14,  15,  52,  64, 

116,  118,  135,  140;  Crom- 
well, 64;  Hernani,  14,  140; 
Marion  Delorme,  14,  116; 
Ruy  Bias,  52. 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  18,  25,  47,  88, 
102,  117,  120,  123,  131,  133, 
135,  137,  141,  145,  147,  148, 
158,  218;  A  Doll's  House, 
47,  53,  146,  158;  An  En- 
emij  of  the  People,  137, 
201;  Ghosts,  53,  142,  144, 
145,  215.  219,  230;  Iledda 
Gahler,  37,  53,  87.  102,  115, 

117,  120,  145.  15H.  181,  215, 
220;  .fohii  Gabriel  linrk- 
nittn,  123,  112;  Ladi/  Inger 
of  Oslrdt,  19;  Peer  Gynt, 
31;  Rosmersholm,  117,  218, 


244 


INDEX 


219;  The  MasUr  Builder, 

56,   158;   The   Wild  Duck, 

147. 
Idylls  of  the  King,  195. 
In  a  Balcony,  10. 
Inferno,  188. 
Inquiries  and  Opinions,  108, 

235. 
Iris,  53. 
Irving,  Sir  Henry,  19,  71,  72, 

105,  106,  124,  157. 
Irving,  Washington,  70;  Bip 

Van  Winkle,  70. 

James,  Henry,  32. 

Jeanne  d'Arc.  193,  194,  196, 
197. 

Jefferson,  Joseph,  70,  103, 
210,  226;  Autobiography, 
103;  Rip  Van  Winkle,  70, 
210,  226. 

Jerome,  Jerome  K.,  125;  The 
Passing  of  the  Third  Floor 
Back,  125. 

Jew  of  Malta,  The,  136. 

John  Gabriel  Borkman,  123, 
142. 

Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  69, 
120,  123;  Mrs.  Dane's  De- 
fense, 120;  Whitewashing 
Julia,  123. 

Jonson,  Ben,  74,  100,  117, 
202,  203;  Bartholomew 
Fair,  202;  Every  Man  in 
II is  Humour,  100. 

Julius  Ccesar,  104,  125. 

Keats,   John,   19;   Ode   to  a 

Nightingale,  31. 
Kennedy,  Charles  Rann,  23, 

45,  46,  47;  The  Servant  in 

the  House,  23,  45,  46. 
Killigrew,  Thomas,  79. 
King  John,  119. 
King  Lear,  17,  36,  43,   136, 

174,  197. 


Kipling,  Rudyard,  5S;  They, 

52. 
Klein,     Charles,     155;     The 

Lion  and  the  Mouse,  203; 

The  Music  Master,  23,  154. 
Knowles,  Sheridan,  79;   Vir- 

ginius,  79. 
Kyd,  Thomas,  48,  131;   The 

Spanish  Tragedy,  76. 

Lady  Inger  of  Ostrdt,  19. 
Lady  Windermere's  Fan,  89. 
La  Grange,  62,  63,  71. 
Lamb,  Charles,  85,  200. 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  237. 
Launcelot  of  the  Lake,  188. 
Lear,  see  King  Lear. 
Leatherstocking  Tales,  59. 
Le    Bon,    Gustave,    34,    49; 

Psychologie  des  Foides,  34. 
Lee,  Nathaniel,  70. 
Letty,  37,  53. 
Lincoln,  74. 
Lion    and    the    Mouse,    The, 

203. 
London  Assurance,  83. 
Lope  de  Vega,  51. 
Lord  Chamberlain's  Men,  60. 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  48. 
Lyly,  John,  48,  61. 
Lyons  Mail,  The,  38. 

Macbeth,  17,  36,  43,  76,  77, 

98,  118,  136,  144,  195. 
Mackaye,    Percy,    193,    196, 

197;    Jeanne    d'Arc,    193, 

194,  196,  197. 
Macready,   William   Charles, 

32. 
Maeterlinck,     Maurice,     31; 

PMleas  and  MMisande,  56. 
Magda,  53,  220. 
Maid's  Tragedy,  The,  28. 
Main,  La,  10. 

Man  and  Superman,  47,  74. 
Man  from  Home,  The,  230. 


INDEX 


245 


Man  of  the  Hour,  The,  203. 

Mansfield,  Richard,  41,  70, 
104,  106,  1-25. 

Marion  Delorme,  14,  116. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  48,  73, 
135,  137,  163,  171;  Dr. 
Faustus,  136,  137;  Hero 
and  Leander,  171;  The 
Jew  of  Malta,  136;  Tam- 
burlaine  the  Great,  73,  136. 

Marlowe,  Julia,  61. 

Marpessa,  195. 

Mary  of  Magdala,  7,  116. 

Mason,  John,  63. 

Massinger,  Philip,  7. 

Master  Builder,  The,  56,  158. 

Mathews,  Charles  James,  82. 

Matthews,  Brander,  67,  108, 
235;  Inquiries  and  Opin- 
ions, 108,  235. 

Measure  for  Measure,  220. 

Medecin  MaJgri  Lui,  Le,  132. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  61, 

62,  77,  78,  109,  110. 
Meredith,    George,    52;    The 

Egoist,  31. 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor, 
The,  215. 

Middleton,  Thomas,  202. 

Miller,  Henrj',  16,  155. 

Milton,  John,  52;  Samson 
Agonistes,  31. 

Misanthrope,  Le,  63,  132, 
175. 

Modjeska,  Helena,  65,  91. 

Moliere,  J.-B.  Poquelin  de, 
9,  17,  18,  25,  26,  32,  43, 
48,  50,  55,  60,  62,  63,  71, 
132,  163,  171,  172,  175,  235; 
Les  Fourberies  de  Scapin, 
51;  Le  Medecin  Malgri 
Lui,  132;  Le  Misnnlhrojie, 

63,  132,  175;  Les  Pr^- 
cieuses  Ridicules,  60,  63; 
Le  Tartufe,  100,  116,  230, 
231. 


Moliere,  Mile.,  see  Armande 

Bejart. 
Moody,      William      Vaughn, 

230;     The    Great    Divide, 

230. 
Mounet-Sullv,  181. 
Mrs.  Dane's  Defense,  120. 
Mrs.  Leffingwell's  Boots,  16. 
Mrs.     Warren's     Profession, 

■22\,  225. 
Much  Ado   About  Nothing, 

36,  99. 
Music  Master,  The,  23,  154. 
Musketeers,  The,  121. 

Nazimova,    Alia,    158,     195, 

196,  197. 
Nicholas  Nickleby,  90. 
Nietsche,  Friedrich  Wilhelm, 

47. 
Nos  Intimes,  64. 
Notorious     Mrs.     Ebbsmith, 

The,  53,  120,  142, 
Novell!,  Ermete,  154. 

Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  31. 

(Edipus  King,  25,  38,  60,  100, 
144,  181,  219. 

Orphan,  The,  70. 

Othello,  17,  21,  37,  43,  51,  56, 
58,  99,  136,  144,  154,  194, 
230. 

Otway,  Thomas,  70;  The  Or- 
phan, 70;  Venice  Pre- 
served, 70. 

Paestum,  Temple  at,  208. 
Paolo  and  Francesca,  194. 
Passing   of  the   Third  Floor 

Back,  The,  125. 
Patrie,  64,  66. 
Paltes  de  Mouche,  Les,  64. 
Peer  Gynt,  31. 
PilUas  and  Milisande,  56. 
Peter  Pan,  215. 
Philanderer,  The,  224. 


246 


INDEX 


Phillips,  Stephen,  19,  193, 
194,  195,  197;  Christ  in 
Hades,  197 ;  Marpessa, 
195;  Paolo  and  Francesco, 
194. 

Philosophy  of  Style,  95. 

Pinero,  Sir  Arthur  Wing,  19, 
25,  69,  88,  93,  1:20,  158,  212, 
213;  Iris,  53;  Letty,  37, 
53;  The  Gay  Lord  Quex, 
120,  134,  213;  The  Noto- 
rious Mrs.  Ebbsmith,  53, 
120,  142;  The  Second  Mrs. 
Tanqueray,  53,  56,  69,  120, 
141,  193,  231;  The  Wife 
Without  a  Smile,  213; 
Trelatcny  of  the  Wells,  87. 

Pippa  Passes,  31,  194. 

Plautus,  35,  50. 

Plays  Pleasant  and  Unpleas- 
ant, 222. 

Plutarch,  17. 

Praxiteles,  207,  211. 

Pr^cieuses  Ridicules,  Les,  60, 
63. 

Professor's  Love  Story,  The, 
157. 

Psychologie  des  Foules,  34. 

Quintessence  of  Ibsenism, 
The,  143. 

Racine,  Jean,  50,  235. 

Raffles,  37. 

Raphael,  162;  Sistine  Ma- 
donna, 30. 

Regnard,  J.-F.,  9. 

Rehan,  Ada,  61. 

Religio  Medici,  31. 

Richard  III,  48. 

Richelieu,  79. 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  70,  210, 
226. 

Rivals,  The,  132,  160. 

Romanesques,  Les,  66. 


Romeo  and  Juliet,  61,  76, 
174,  232. 

Romola,  59. 

Rose  of  the  Rancho,  The,  42, 
155. 

Rosmersholm,  117,  218,  219. 

Rossetti,  Christina  Georgina, 
206. 

Rostand,  Edmond,  9,  66,  67, 
68,  71;  Cyrano  de  Ber- 
gerac,  31,  56,  60,  67,  71,  98, 
100,  105,  121,  195;  L'Aig- 
lon,  67,  68;  Les  Roman- 
esques, 66. 

Round  Up,  The,  41. 

Ruy  Bias,  52. 

Saint-Gaudens,   Augustus, 

153. 
Samson  Agonistes,  31. 
Sappho,  205. 
Sarcey,  Francisque,  122. 
Sardou,  Victorian,  12,  18,  19, 

64,  65,  66;  Diplomacy, 
101;  FMora,  65;  Ois- 
monda,  65;  Nos  Intimes, 
64;  Patrie,  64,  66;  La  Sor- 
cidre,  65,  66;  La  Tosca,  40, 

65,  105;  Les  Pattes  d« 
Mouche,  64. 

Sargent,  John  Singer,   153. 
Schiller,    Johann     Christoph 

Friedrich,  234. 
School  for  Scandal,  The,  40, 

55,    64,   86,    101,    105,    123, 

132. 
Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  47. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  19. 
Scrap  of  Paper,  The,  64. 
Scribe,  Eugene,  19,  53,  64,  98. 
Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  The, 

53,   56,   69,    120,    141,    193, 

231. 
Servant  in  the  House,  The, 

23,  45,  46,  47. 


INDEX 


247 


Shakespeare,  William,  7,  16, 
17,  18,  25,  -26,  32,  36,  43, 
44,  47,   48,  51,  55,  57,  58, 

60,  61,  62,  71,  75,  93,  109, 
113,  115,  lis,  119,  1:20,  122, 
130,  13:2,  135,  136,  154,  157, 
158,  163,  172,  197,  202,  220; 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  16; 
As  You  Like  It,  38,  48,  51, 

61,  62,  77,  78,  92,  100,  172, 
186,  220;  Cymbeline,  17, 
62;  Hamlet,  8,  12,  38,  39, 
48,  51,  55,  60,  61,  67,  68,  71, 
79,  89,  92,  100,  101,  105, 
106,  107,  115,  118,  121,  122, 
130,  136,  175,  177,  181,  184, 
185,  187,  194,  203,  233; 
Henry  V,  41,  77;  Julius 
C(psar,  104,  125;  King 
John,  119;  King  Lear,  17, 
36,  43,  136,  174,  197; 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  48; 
Macbeth,  17,  36,  43,  76,  77, 
98,  118,  136,  144,  195; 
Measure  for  Measure,  220; 
Much  Ado  About  y-:'thing, 
36,  99;  Othello,  17,  21,  37, 
43,  51,  56,  58,  99,  136,  144, 
154,  194,  230;  Richard  III, 
48;  Romeo  and  Juliet,  61, 

76,  174,  232;  The  Comedy 
of  Errors,  38;  The  Mer- 
chant   of    Venice,    61,    62, 

77,  78,  109,  110;  The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor, 
215;  The  Tempest,  48,  215; 
Twelfth  Mght,  36,  62,  78, 
92,  109,  110,  197,  198;  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,  61. 

Shaw,  Geor)re  Bernard,  43, 
47,  U:J,  147,  222,  223,  224; 
Candida,  224,  225;  Man 
and  Superman,  47,  74; 
Mrs.  Warren's  Profession, 
224,  225;  Plays  Pleasant 
and  Unpleasant,  222;  The 


Philanderer,  224;  The 
Quintessence  of  Ibsenism, 
143;  Widower's  Houses, 
22i. 

Shellev,  Percy  Bvsshe,  19, 
144;  The  Cenci,  "144. 

Shenandoah,  101,  108,  157, 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley, 
9,  64,  82,  123,  160;  The 
Rivals,  132,  160;  The 
School  for  Scandal,  40,  55, 
64,  86,  101,  105,  123,  132. 

Sherlock  Holmes,  22,  121, 
157, 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  38. 

Shore  Acres,  87,  193. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  73. 

Sistine  Madonna,  30. 

Skinner,  Otis,  91. 

Socrates,  201. 

Song  of  Myself,  183. 

Song  of  the  Open  Road,  217. 

Sonnenthal,  Adolf  von,   106. 

Sophocles,  32,  60,  131,  135; 
(Edipus  King,  25,  38,  60, 
100,  144,  181,  219. 

Sorci^re,  La,  65,  66. 

Sothern,  Edward  U.,  106, 
107. 

Southey,  Robert,  19,  228; 
After  Blenheim,  228. 

Spanish    Tragedy,   The,   76. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  95;  Phi- 
losophy of  Style,  95. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  31, 
128,  170,  214,  221;  A  Gos- 
sip on  Romance,  128; 
Treasure  Island,  33. 

Story  of  Waterloo,  The,  157. 

Strongheart,  41. 

Sunken  Hell,  The,  194. 

Sweet  Kitty  Bellairs,  86. 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles, 
19;  Atalanta  in  Calydon, 
20. 


248 


INDEX 


Talma,  64,  71. 

Tamburlaine   the   Great,   73, 

136. 
Tartufe,   he,    100,    116,   230, 

231. 
Tears,  Idle  Tears,  195. 
Tempest,  The,  48,  215. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  19, 

31,     72,     193,     195,      196; 

Becket,    19,   72;   Idylls   of 

the  King,  195;  Tears,  Idh 

Tears,  195. 
Terence,  26,  35,  50. 
Thackeray,    William    Make- 
piece,  35. 
They,  52. 
Thomas,    Augustus,    16,    45, 

46,     63,     203,     230;     Mrs. 

Leffingwell's     Boots,     16; 

The    Witching    Hour,    16, 

45,  46,  63,  203,  230. 
Tosca,  La,  40,  65,  105. 
Treasure  Island,  33. 
Tree,  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm, 

119,  121. 
Trelawny  of  the  Wells,  87. 
Troupe  de  Monsieur,  62. 
Tully,  Richard  Walton,  155; 

The  Rose  of  the  Rancho, 

42,  155. 
Twelfth  Night,  36,  62,  78,  92, 

109,  110,  197,  198. 
Ttro   Gentlemen   of   Verona, 

61. 
Two  Orphans,  The,  6,  31,  32, 

37,  175. 

Venice  Preserved,  70. 
Venus  of  Melos,  30. 
Vestris,  Madame,  82. 
Via  Wireless,  230. 
Virginius,  79. 


Voltaire,  Frangois  Marie 
Arouet  de,   14;  Zaire,  14. 

Wagner,  Richard,  117. 

Warfield,  David,  154,  155. 

Webb,  Captain,  128. 

Webster,  John,  130;  The 
Duchess  of  Malfl,  130. 

Whitewashing  Julia,  123. 

Whitman,  Walt,  180,  182, 
213,  217;  Crossing  Brook- 
lyn Ferry,  182;  Song  of 
Myself,  182;  Song  of  the 
Open  Road,  217. 

Widower's  Houses,  224. 

Wiehe,  Charlotte,  10. 

Wife  Without  a  Smile,  The, 
213. 

Wild  Duck,  The,  147. 

Wilde,  Oscar,  9;  Lady  Win- 
dermere's Fan,  89. 

Willard,  Edward  S.,  157. 

Wills,   William  Gorman,   72. 

Winter,  William,  8. 

Witching  Hour,  The,  16,  45, 
46,  63,  203,  230. 

Woman  Killed  with  Kind- 
ness, A,  38. 

Woman's  Last  Word,  A,  32. 

Woman's  Way,  A,  74. 

Wordsworth,  William,  19. 

Wyndham,  Sir  Charles,  62, 
69. 

Yiddish  drama,  11. 

Young,  Mrs.   Rida  Johnson, 

155;   Brown   of   Harvard, 

155. 

Zaire,  14. 
Zangwill,  Israel,  41. 


THE  THEATRE 

Gaj'ton  Hamilton's  Theory  of  the  Theatre.     $1.50  net. 

Edward  Everett  Hale,  Jr.'s  Dramatists  of  To-Day.  Ros- 
tand, Hauptmann,  Sudermann,  Pinero,  Shaw,  Phillips, 
Maeterlinck.    New  Edition  with  Portraits.    $1.50  net. 

George  Witkowski's  German  Drama  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century.    $1.00  net. 

Calvin  Thomas's  Life  and  Works  of  Schiller.    $1.50  net. 
W.   Eraser   Rae's  Life  of  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan. 
With  portraits.    2  vols.    $7.00. 

Jerome  K.  Jerome's  On  the  Stage — and  Off.  Humorous 
articles  on  The  Hero,  The  Stage  Child,  The  Villain  and  other 
stage  types.     Illustrated.     $1.00. 

Eva  Lathbury's  The  Sinking  Ship.  A  novel  of  London 
Theatrical  Life.    To-day.    $1.50. 

SHAKESPEARE 

Bernhard  ten  Brink's  Five  Lectures  on  Shakespeare. 
The  Poet  and  the  Man,  The  Chronology  of  Shakepeare's 
Works,  Shakespeare  as  Dramatist,  Shakespeare  as  Comic  Poet, 
Shakespeare  as  Tragic  Writer.  Index  to  works  mentioned. 
Translated  by  Julia  Franklin.    $1.25  net. 

Stopford  Brooke's  On  Ten  Plays  of  Shakespeare.  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Richard  I,  Richard 
II,  Merchant  of  Venice,  As  You  Like  It,  Macbeth,  Coriolanus, 
Winter's  Talc,  The  Tempest.    $2.25  net. 

Stopford  Brooke's  On  Ten  Further  Plays  of  Shakes- 
peare. Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  Twelfth  Night,  Julius 
Caesar,  Hamlet,  Measure  for  Measure,  Othello,  King  John, 
King  Lear,  Henry  IV  (i,  2) ;  Henry  V.  Probable  price,  $2.25 
net.     (May.) 

John  Mascficld's  Shakespeare.  (Home  University  Li- 
brary.) 50c.  net. 

Charlton  M.  Lewis's  The  Genesis  of  Hamlet.    $1.25  net. 

Felix  E.  Schelling's  English  Literature  During  the 
Lifeti.me  of  Shakespeare.    $2.50  net. 

Henry  Thcw.  Stephenson's  Shakespeare's  London.  Illus- 
trated.   $2.00  net. 

Stephenson's  The  Eliz^vbetiian  People..  Illustrated. 
$2.00  net. 

Poilaoc  on  net  books  8%   additional 

HENRY     HOLT      AND     COMPANY 

publishers  new  YORK 


PLAYS 

Richard  Burton's  Raiiab.  A  drama  of  the  fall  of  Jericho 
(in  verse.)     Illustrated.     $1.25  net. 

Beulah  Marie  Dix's  Allison's  Lad,  The  Hundreth  Trick, 
The  Weakest  Link,  The  Snare  and  the  Fowler,  The  Captain 
of  the  Gate,  The  Dark  of  the  Dawn.  One  act  Martial  Inter- 
ludes.   $1.35  net. 

Michael  Field's  Callirrhoe;  Fair  Rosamund.  (Dramas 
in  verse.)     $1.25. 

Henrik  Hertz's  King  Rene's  Daughter.  (A  drama  in 
verse.)     $1.25. 

Kalidasa's  Shakuntala.  Translated  by  Prof.  A.  H. 
Edgren.     $1.50. 

Lessing's  Nathan  The  Wise.  Translated  by  Ellen 
Frothingham.     $1.50. 

Geo.  Middleton's  Embers,  with  The  Failures,  In  His 
House,  The  Gargoyle,  Madonna,  The  Man  Masterful.  $1.35 
net. 

George  Middleton's  Tradition.  With  On  Bail,  Waiting, 
Their  Wife,  Mothers,  The  Cheat  of  Pity.  Another  volume  of 
one  act  plays  of  American  Life.     $1.35  net. 

Chas.  Leonard  Moore's  The  Banquet  of  Palacios.  A 
comedy  of  South  America.     To-day.    $1.00. 

Martin  Schutze's  Hero  and  Leander.  A  tragedy  in  verse, 
$1.25  net. 

Martin  Schutze's  Judith.     A  tragedy  in  verse     $1.25  net. 

Margaret  L.  Woods'  The  Princess  of  Hanover.  An  his- 
torical tragedy  in  verse.    $1.50. 

'***For  a  large  number  of  plays  in  Foreign  Languages,  see 
the  publishers'  Foreign  Language  Catalog. 

PLAYS  FOR  YOUNG  FOLKS 

Constance  D'Arcy  Mackay's  Patriotic  Plays  and  Page- 
ants, Pageant  of  Patriotism,  Hawthorne  Pageant.  Parts  of 
the  first  pageant  can  be  given  as  one  act  plays.     $1.35  net. 

C.  D'A.  Mackay's  The  House  of  the  Heart  with  The 
Enchanted  Garden,  A  Little  Pilgrim's  Progress,  A  Pageant  of 
Hours,  On  Christmas  Eve,  The  Elf  Child,  The  Princess  and 
the  Pixies,  etc.    $1.10  net. 

C.  D'A.  Mackay's  The  Silver  Thread  and  other  Folk 
Plays,  including  The  Forest  Spring,  Troll  Magic,  The  Three 
Wishes,  Siegfried,  The  Snow  Witch,  etc.     $1.10  net. 

***  For  a  number  of  French  and  German  plays  for  young 
folk,  see  also  the  publishers'  Foreign  Language  Catalog. 
*Postage  on  net  books  8%  additional. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

34  West  33d  Street  NEW  YORK 


By       GEORGE        MIDDLETON 

One  Act  Plays  of  American  Life  To-day 

Either  volume,  $1.35  net;  by  mail,  $1.43 

EMBERS 

With  The  Failures,  The  Gargoyle,  In  His  House,  Madonna 
and  The  Man  Masterful. 

These  one-act  plays  are  perfectly  practical  for  clever  amateurs  and 
especially  available  for  club  discussion  and  reading.  Each  play 
is  the  epitome  of  a  larger  drama  which  is  suggested  in  the  back- 
ground. Embers  shows  the  influence  of  an  ideal  on  a  life;  The  Failures 
portrays  what  love  may  become  in  weak  characters.  The  Gargoyle  shows 
the  pathos  and  insincerity  of  tlie  literary  temperament.  In  His  House 
and  The  Man  Masterful  are  intimate  studies  of  marriage.  Madonna 
is  a  delicate  picture  of  a  girl's  psychology  on  her  wedding  eve. 

Richard  Burton  in  The  Bellman:  "Embers  is  a  volume  of  sketches 
which  show  the  trained  hand  of  the  expert  and  are,  moreover,  decidedly 
interestirtg  for  their  psychological   value." 

Prof,  lyitliam  Lyon  Phelfs  of  Yale:  "The  plays  are  admirable;  the 
conversations  have  the  true  style  of  human  speech,  and  show  first-rate 
economy  of  words,  every  syllable  advancing  tlie  plot.  The  little  dramas 
are  full  of  cerebration,  and  1  shall  recommend  them  in  my  public 
lectures."  i;*  '"^ 

Chicago  Record  Herald:  "AH  arc  clear  concise,  dynamic,  suggesting 
drama  rather  than  revealing  it.  the  language  simple,  the  structure  ex- 
cellent, the  characterization  vivid." 

TRADITION 

With  On  Bail,  Mothers,  Waiting,  Their  Wife  and  The 
Cheat  of  Pity. 

A  companion  volume  to  the  above.  Tradition  deals  with  the  attempt 
of  the  dominant  though  kindly  man  of  the  family  to  crush  the  artistic 
ambitions  of  his  wife  and  daughter  through  their  economic  dependence. 
On  Bail  is  a  remorseless  picture  of  a  social  parasite  and  the  eltect  uj)on 
him  and  his  family.  Mothers  shows  the  relation  of  a  woman  to  her 
child  and  the  demands  of  society  upon  her  motherliness,  while  IVaiting 
is  a  tender  portrayal  of  a  long  delayed  marriage  due  to  traditional  feel- 
ings. Their  Wife  is  an  ironical  comedy  in  the  miasma  of  intrigue; 
The  Cheat  of  Pity  gives  an  intimate  stuily  of  marriage  and  the  relative 
claims    of    passion    with    pity    and    the    habic    of    life. 

Clayton  Hamilton  in  an  extended  notice  in  The  Bookman:  "All  of 
these  little  pieces  are  admirable  in  technique:  they  are  soundly  con- 
structed and  written  in  natural  and  lucid  dialogue.  .  .  .  lie  has  sounded 
to  the  depths  the  souls  of  those  eccentric  and  extraordinary  women 
whom  he  has  chosen  to  dc]>ict." 

New  York  Globe:  "His  gallery  of  contemporary  portraits  of  women 
is  complete.  .  .  .  The  workmanship  of  the  |)Iays  is  about  as  perfect  as 
could  De.  .  .  .  Women  who  want  to  understand  themselves  should  take 
a  look  at  Tradition.  What  they  see  there  will  be,  on  the  whole,  flatter- 
ing. In  fact,  the  modern,  inflependencc-seeking,  own-thinking  woman  has 
not  found  a  more  sympathetic  or  understanding  friend  than  the  author." 

HENRY      HOLT     AND      COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


SIXTH   EDITION,    ENLARGED    AND    WITH     PORTRAITS 

HALE'S    DRAMATISTS    OF    TO-DAY 

Rostand,     Hauptmann,     Sudermann, 
PiNERO,  Shaw,  Phillips,  Maeterlinck 

By  Prof.   Edward    Everett    Hale,  Jr.,  of  Union  College. 
With  gilt  top,  $1.50  net;  by  mail,  $1.60. 

Since  this  work  first  appeared  in  1905,  Maeterlinck's  Sister 
Beatrice,  The  Blue  Bird  and  Mary  Magdalene,  Rostand's 
Chantecler  and  Pinero's  Mid-Channel  and  The  Thunder- 
bolt— among  the  notable  plays  by  some  of  Dr.  Hale's  drama- 
tists— have  been  acted  here.  Discussions  of  them  are  added 
to  this  new  edition,  as  are  considerations  of  Bernard  Shaw's 
and  Stephen  Phillips'  latest  plays.  The  author's  papers  on 
Hauptmann  and  Sudermann,  with  slight  additions,  with  his 
"Note  on  Standards  of  Criticism,"  "Our  Idea  of  Tragedy," 
and  an  appendix  of  all  the  plays  of  each  author,  with  dates  of 
their  first  performance  or  publication,  complete  the  volume. 

Bookina7t :  "He  writes  in  a  pleasant,  free-and-easy  way.  .  .  .  He 
accepts  things  chiefly  at  their  face  value,  but  he  describes  them  so  ac- 
curately and  agreeably  that  he  recalls  vividly  to  mind  the  plays  we 
have  seen  and  the  pleasure  we  have  found  in  them." 

New  York  Evening  Post :  "  It  is  not  often  nowadays  that  a  theatrical 
b'lOk  can  be  met  with  so  free  from  gush  and  mere  eulogy,  or  so  weighted 
by  common  sense  ...  an  excellent  chronological  appendix  and  full 
index    .    .    .    uncommonly  useful  for  reference." 

Dial :  "  Noteworthy  example  of  literary  criticism  in  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  literary  fields.  .  .  .  Provides  a  varied  menu  of  the 
most  interesting  character.  .  .  .  Prof.  Hale  establishes  confidential 
relations  with  the  reader  from  the  start.  .  .  .  Very  definite  opinions, 
clearly  reasoned  and  amply  fortified  by  example.  .  .  .  Well  worth 
reading  a  second  time." 

New  York  Tribune:    "  Both  instructive  and  entertaining." 

Brooklyn  Eagle:  "A  dramatic  critic  who  is  not  just  'busting'  him- 
self with  Titanic  intellectualities,  but  who  is  a  readable  dramatic  critic. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Hale  is  a  modest  and  sensible,  as  well  as  an  acute  and  sound 
critic.  .  .  .  Most  people  will  be  surprised  and  delighted  with  Mr. 
Hale's  simplicity,  perspicuity  and  ingenuousness." 

The  Theatre:  "A  pleasing  lightness  of  touch.  .  .  .  Very  read- 
able book." 


HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


BEULAH   MARIE  DIX'S 

ALLISON'S  LAD  AND  OTHER  MARTIAL 
INTERLUDES 

By  the  co-author  of  the  play,  "The  Road  to  Yesterday,"  and 
author  of  the  novels,  "The  Making  of  Christopher  Ferring- 
ham,"  "Blount  of  Breckenlow,"  etc.  T2mo.  $1.35  net;  by 
mail,  $1.45. 

Allison's  Lad,  The  Hundredth  Trick,  The  Weakest  Link, 
The  Snare  and  the  Fowler,  The  Captain  of  the  Gate,  The 
Dark  of  the  Dawn. 

These  one-act  plays,  despite  their  impressiveness,  are  per- 
fectly practicable  for  performance  by  clever  amateurs ;  at  the 
same  time  they  make  decidedly  interesting  reading. 

Six  stirring  war  episodes.  Five  of  them  occur  at  night, 
and  most  of  them  in  the  dread  pause  before  some  mighty 
conflict.  Three  are  placed  in  Cromwellian  days  (two  in  Ire- 
land and  one  in  England),  one  is  at  the  close  of  the  French 
Revolution,  another  at  the  time  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War, 
and  the  last  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  The  author  has 
most  ingeniously  managed  to  give  the  feeling  of  big  events, 
though  employing  but  few  players.  The  emotional  grip  is 
strong,  even  tragic. 

Courage,  vengeance,  devotion,  and  tenderness  to  the  weak, 
are  among  the  emotions  effectively  displayed. 

"  The  technical  mastery  of  Miss  Dix  is  great,  but  her  spiritual  mastery 
is  greater.  For  this  book  lives  in  memory,  and  the  spirit  of  its 
teachings  is.  in  a  most  intimate  sense,  the  spirit  of  its  teacher.  .  .  . 
Noble  passion  holding  the  balance  between  life  and  death  is  tlie  motif 
sharply  outlined  and  vigorously  portrayed.  In  each  interlude  the  author 
has  seized  upon  a  vital  situation  and  has  massed  all  her  forces  so  as 
to  enhance  its  significance." — Boston  Transcrij't.  (Entire  notice  c.i  ap- 
plication  to   the   publishers.) 

"  Hiehly  dramatic  episodes,  treated  with  skill  and  art  ...  a  high 
pitch  ol  emotion." — New   York  Sun. 

"Complete  and  intense  tragedies  well  plotted  and  well  sustained,  in 
dignified  dialogue  of  persons  of  the  drama  distinctly  diiTerentiatcd." — 
Hartford  Courant. 

"  It  is  a  pleasure  to  say,  without  reservation,  that  the  half  dozen 
plays  before  us  are  finely  true,  strong,  telling  examples  of  dramatic 
art.  .  .  .  Sure  to  find  their  way  speedily  to  the  stage,  justifying 
themselves  there,  even  as  they  justify  themselves  at  a  reading  as  pieces 
of  literature." — The  Bellman. 


HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


TWO   POETIC   DRAMAS 

By  MARTIN  SCHUTZE 

JUDITH 

$1.25  net  ;  by  mail  $1.33, 

"  Mr.  Schutze  has  given  us  a  new  Holofernes,  and  in  doing-  this  he  has 
very  greatly  intensified  the  tragic  situation.  ...  A  well-developed  tragical 
motif  .  .  .  that  wonderful  moment  of  climax.  .  .  .  The  tragic  integrity  of 
the  character  of  Judtiv  is  maintained.  .  .  .  The  details  of  the  drama  are  well 
carried  out.  .  .  .  Mr.  Schutze  has  not  only  been  able  to  change  traditional 
elements  in  the  old  story  and  yet  render  his  version  strong  and  convincing, 
but  he  has  also  given  us  a  memorable  addition  to  the  old  Judith  legend." 
— Boston  Transcript. 

"Among  the  best  modern  achievements.  .  .  .  Developed  with  e.xtra- 
ordinary  power,  both  in  the  structure  of  the  drama  and  in  the  verse,  rich  in 
beautiful  imagery  and  in  the  power  and  dignity  which  the  theme  and  the 
time  demand.  The  author  has  shown  a  wonderful  mastery  of  his  materials 
and  has  succeeded  admirably  in  mailing  his  characters  live  against  the  back- 
ground of  the  Judean  hills." — Philadelphia  Ledger. 

"Well  within  the  unities  and  purposes  of  true  tragedy,  .  .  .  an  atmos- 
phere at  once  classic  and  modern." — Chicago  Tribune. 

"A  picture  is  given  of  the  religious  austerity  of  the  Jews,  and  much  is 
made  of  their  national  jealousy.  Holofernes  is  a  man  of  princely  character. 
.  .  .  This  devotion  of  Judith  to  the  human  excellence  which  she  discerned  in 
Holofernes  gives  an  unexpected  turn  to  the  narrative  and  tits  it  better  for 
modern  interpretation." — Springfield  Republican. 

"  A  poetic  psychological  study  that  at  worst  is  interesting  and  at  best  is 
keenly  dramatic.  ...  In  the  multitudinous  cast  there  are  several  excellent 
bits  for  good  actors.  .  .  .  Plenty  of  characters  and  telling  situations."— A^^a/ 
York  Dramatic  Mirror. 

HERO   AND   LEANDER 

$1.25  net ;  by  mail  $1.33. 

"  Perhaps  the  fullest  and  strongest  drama  that  has  ever  been  written 
about  these  lovers." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"The  consecration  of  Hero  in  the  Temple  of  Venus,  the  apparition  of 
Leander,  his  encounter  with  the  temple  guards,  the  episodes  attending  Hero's 
surrender,  and  the  storm  with  its  tragic  outcome  are  all  valuable  theatrical 
incidents  .  .  .  a  capable,  dignified,  and  interesting  composition  which  would 
be  a  credit  to  any  theatre  producing  it." — Nation. 

"Vivid  scenes.  .  .  .  The  death  of  Hero  is  an  opportunity  seized  by  the 
author  for  more  than  usually  effective  lines;  and  the  closing  scene  sustains 
well  the  tragic  distinction  of  the  climax." — Hartford  Courant. 

"  Unusual  strength  of  construction  and  poetic  expression." — Pro7<idence 
Journal. 

"Here  is,  indeed,  a  beautiful  talent  of  the  greatest  promise,  a  soaring 
fancy,  poesy  of  thought  and  imagination  as  well  as  of  form,  and  sound  classic 
scholarship." — Independent. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW   YORK 

f OVERi 


THE  HOME  BOOK  OF  VERSE 

American  and  English  (.1580-1912) 
Compiled  by  Burton  E.  Stevenson.  Collects  the  best  short 
poetry  of  the  English  language — not  only  the  poetry  every- 
body says  is  good,  but  also  the  verses  that  everybody 
reads.  (3742  pages;  India  paper,  r  vol.,  8vo,  complete  au- 
thor, title  and  tirst  line  indices,  $7.50  net ;  carriage  40  cents 
extra.) 

The  most  comprehensive  and  representative  collection  of 
American  and  English  poetry  ever  published,  including 
3,120  unabridged  poems  froin  some  1,100  authors. 

It  brings  together  in  one  volume  the  best  short  poetry 
of  the  English  language  from  the  time  of  Spencer,  with 
especial  attention  to  American  verse. 

The  copj'right  deadline  has  been  passed,  and  some  three 
hundred  recent  authors  are  included,  very  few  of  whom 
appear  in  any  other  general  anthology,  such  as  Lionel 
Johnson,  Xoyes,  Housman,  Mrs.  Meynell,  Yeats,  Dobson, 
Lang,  Watson,  Wilde,  Francis  Thompson,  Gilder,  Le 
Gallienne,  Van  Dyke,  Woodberry,  Riley,  etc.,  etc. 

The  poems  as  arranged  by  subject,  and  the  classifica- 
tion is  unusually  close  and  searching.  Some  of  the  most 
comprehensive  sections  are:  Children's  rhymes  (300 
pages) ;  love  poems  (800  pages) :  nature  poetry  (400 
pages);  humorous  verse  (500  pages);  patriotic  and  histor- 
ical poems  (600  pages);  reflective  and  descriptive  poetry 
(400  pages).  No  other  collection  contains  so  many  popu- 
lar favorites  and  fugitive  verses. 

DELIGHTFUL  POCKET  ANTHOLOGIES 

The    following   books   are   uniform,  with    full    gilt   flexible   covers   and 
pictured  cover  lir.iiigs.      i6mo.      Each,  cloth,  $1.50;  leather,  $2.50. 

THE  OPEN  KOAD 


THE  GARLAND  OF  CHILDHOOD 

A  little  book  for  all  lovers  of 
children.  Compiled  by  Percy 
Withers. 

THE  VISTA  or  ENGUSH  VERSE 

r"ompll'-rl  t>y  Hinry  S.  IMn- 
rr)ast.  Kr.jm  Spencer  to  Klp- 
llnc. 

LETTERS  THAT  LIVE 

Compll»-il  by  I.aura.  K.  Lock- 
wood  and  Amy  K.  Kelly.  Some 
150  letters. 


POEMS  FOR  TRAVELLERS 

(About    "The    (•ontlnent.") 
Compiled  by  MI»h  Mary  U.  J. 
DuBols. 


A  little  book  for  wayfarers. 
Compiled  by  E.  V.  Lucas. 

THE  FRIENDLY  TOWN 

A  llttif  tiook  fir  th"^  urbane, 
compiled   by   E.    V.    Lucas. 

THE  POETIC  OLD-WORLD 

(•.imiiil.-<l  l)y  Miss  L.  H. 
Humphrey.  Covers  Europe,  Ib- 
cludlnK  .'^palii,  IJi'ltjluin  and  the 
JJritiHh    Isl<-a. 

THE  POETIC  NEW-WORLD 

C<)inpll>'il  hy   MiMH  Huiiiplirey. 


HENRY     H  O  L  1      AND     COMPANY 

34  WEST  33ru  street  NEW  YORK 


This  book  IS  13^>^"" 


•as 


^ECO  10  URl 

JUL    2  1986 

JUN    5^986 


Form  L9- 


JV)L 


t  a 


»w 


^r 


3  1158  00239  7080 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

"  'i'||i"|{!||"'| '!'  11!' 11  "I  'V  iri'"" '"  I"  ir 


iiliJinil  II'  l'ii|i  HI  i:|i  '|i|i||  I  (III  liilil 

AA    000  409  577 


m 


,  «■'   '■»■.- 


^  I 


mmm' 


